Bill, Melinda Gates see big jump for the poor

  • By Cara Anna Associated Press
  • Thursday, January 22, 2015 9:15pm
  • Business

NEW YORK — The lives of poor people around the world will improve more over the next 15 years “than at any time in history,” predicts the Gates Foundation.

Bill and Melinda Gates in an interview laid out the vision for the world’s largest charitable foundation as they prepared to travel to the World Economic Forum and its annual networking meeting of heads of state and business leaders.

The international community, led by the United Nations, is deciding this year on the most crucial development goals for the next 15 years in defeating poverty, disease and hunger.

The $42 billion Gates Foundation’s own ambitious 15-year agenda, spelled out in its latest annual letter, foresees the elimination of polio and three other diseases and says Africa will be able to feed itself.

But climate change, an increasingly alarming global issue, is only briefly addressed, though the U.N. secretary-general has warned that this is the last generation that can do anything to avoid its worst effects. The foundation’s letter calls “right now” for the development of cheaper, zero-carbon-emissions energy sources.

The Gates Foundation’s annual letter was published online early Thursday. It looks ahead to a world where polio and Guinea worm, along with at least two others, will be eliminated.

It will be a “much better eradication track record in these 15 years than in all of human history,” Bill Gates said in the interview Wednesday.

Polio could be the first to go. Africa hasn’t had a case in the past six months, and with most of the cases recorded in Pakistan last year, the government there is stepping up, “knowing they’re last, the spotlight’s on them,” Gates said.

It takes three years of no documented cases to certify that a disease has been eradicated, so the earliest that polio will be declared over is 2018.

“It’ll be 2018 or within one or two years of that,” Gates said.

The foundation has been assertive in the fight to end malaria as well, but that won’t be achieved in the next 15 years, he said.

Melinda Gates spoke out strongly about another goal, cutting in half the number of deaths for children under 5. It was achieved between 1990 and now, and doing it again would bring the death rate to one child in 40 over the next decade and a half.

“Sometimes these things don’t make the headlines, but they should,” she said.

The couple said they plan to meet with World Health Organization chief Margaret Chan at the World Economic Forum in Davos. The foundation last year announced it would spend $50 million on the emergency response to Ebola in West Africa, where both WHO and Chan have been criticized for their handling of the worst outbreak of the disease in history. More than 8,000 people have died.

“I think the biggest lesson coming out of the Ebola outbreak is we need to invest in primary health care centers, those little health posts that the people come in and they’re referred up in the system,” Melinda Gates said. “Had those been functioning and working better in West Africa, the disease would have been contained much more quickly.”

Talk to us

> Give us your news tips.

> Send us a letter to the editor.

> More Herald contact information.

More in Business

Black Press Media operates Sound Publishing, the largest community news organization in Washington State with dailies and community news outlets in Alaska.
Black Press Media concludes transition of ownership

Black Press Media, which operates Sound Publishing, completed its sale Monday (March 25), following the formerly announced corporate restructuring.

Maygen Hetherington, executive director of the Historic Downtown Snohomish Association, laughs during an interview in her office on Thursday, Feb. 15, 2024, in Snohomish, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Maygen Hetherington: tireless advocate for the city of Snohomish

Historic Downtown Snohomish Association receives the Opportunity Lives Here award from Economic Alliance.

FILE - Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs poses in front of photos of the 15 people who previously held the office on Nov. 22, 2021, after he was sworn in at the Capitol in Olympia, Wash. Hobbs faces several challengers as he runs for election to the office he was appointed to last fall. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)
Secretary of State Steve Hobbs: ‘I wanted to serve my country’

Hobbs, a former Lake Stevens senator, is the recipient of the Henry M. Jackson Award from Economic Alliance Snohomish County.

Mark Duffy poses for a photo in his office at the Mountain Pacific Bank headquarters on Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2024 in Everett, Washington. (Annie Barker / The Herald)
Mark Duffy: Building a hometown bank; giving kids an opportunity

Mountain Pacific Bank’s founder is the recipient of the Fluke Award from Economic Alliance Snohomish County.

Barb Tolbert poses for a photo at Silver Scoop Ice Cream on Thursday, Feb. 29, 2024 in Arlington, Washington. (Annie Barker / The Herald)
Barb Tolbert: Former mayor piloted Arlington out of economic brink

Tolbert won the Elson S. Floyd Award, honoring a leader who has “created lasting opportunities” for the underserved.

Photo provided by 
Economic Alliance
Economic Alliance presented one of the Washington Rising Stem Awards to Katie Larios, a senior at Mountlake Terrace High School.
Mountlake Terrace High School senior wins state STEM award

Katie Larios was honored at an Economic Alliance gathering: “A champion for other young women of color in STEM.”

The Westwood Rainier is one of the seven ships in the Westwood line. The ships serve ports in the Pacific Northwest and Northeast Asia. (Photo provided by Swire Shipping)
Westwood Shipping Lines, an Everett mainstay, has new name

The four green-hulled Westwood vessels will keep their names, but the ships will display the Swire Shipping flag.

A Keyport ship docked at Lake Union in Seattle in June 2018. The ship spends most of the year in Alaska harvesting Golden King crab in the Bering Sea. During the summer it ties up for maintenance and repairs at Lake Union. (Keyport LLC)
In crabbers’ turbulent moment, Edmonds seafood processor ‘saved our season’

When a processing plant in Alaska closed, Edmonds-based business Keyport stepped up to solve a “no-win situation.”

Angela Harris, Executive Director of the Port of Edmonds, stands at the port’s marina on Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2024, in Edmonds, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Leadership, love for the Port of Edmonds got exec the job

Shoring up an aging seawall is the first order of business for Angela Harris, the first woman to lead the Edmonds port.

The Cascade Warbirds fly over Naval Station Everett. (Sue Misao / The Herald file)
Bothell High School senior awarded $2,500 to keep on flying

Cascade Warbirds scholarship helps students 16-21 continue flight training and earn a private pilot’s certificate.

Rachel Gardner, the owner of Musicology Co., a new music boutique record store on Thursday, Jan. 18, 2024 in Edmonds, Washington. Musicology Co. will open in February, selling used and new vinyl, CDs and other music-related merchandise. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
New Edmonds record shop intends to be a ‘destination for every musician’

Rachel Gardner opened Musicology Co. this month, filling a record store gap in Edmonds.

MyMyToyStore.com owner Tom Harrison at his brick and mortar storefront on Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2022 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Burst pipe permanently closes downtown Everett toy store

After a pipe flooded the store, MyMyToystore in downtown Everett closed. Owner Tom Harrison is already on to his next venture.

Support local journalism

If you value local news, make a gift now to support the trusted journalism you get in The Daily Herald. Donations processed in this system are not tax deductible.