The Living Proof Project in France

Paris, 4 April 2011 – Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will visit Paris today at an important time before France hosts the G8/ G20 for the French launch of the Living Proof campaign in partnership with ONE.

The campaign challenges perceptions about aid, providing evidence of how smart, targeted aid is saving millions of lives, improving livelihoods, and building prosperous and stable societies. Gates will show that we are on the brink of some enormous successes but these will only become a reality if donor governments keep up their support for smart aid and encourage others to do the same. France is in a unique and powerful position through the G8 and G20 to keep up the momentum and leadership in building a better world for millions.

We have already seen some remarkable successes:

• In the last 50 years, child deaths in the developing world have been cut by more than 50 percent, despite the birth rate increasing;
  
• Polio cases have been reduced by 99 percent since 1988, and we are now on the threshold of eradicating only the second disease in history;
  
• Measles deaths in Africa dropped by 92 percent between 2000 and 2008;
  
• Malaria cases have been reduced by 50 percent in 38 countries between 2000 and 2008;
  
• Ghana’s agriculture sector is growing at more than 5 percent a year and the country cut hunger levels by 75 percent from 1990 to 2004.

These are just a few examples. Living Proof will bring these statistics to life, telling the stories of the people behind the numbers, and the real lives that have been transformed.

Commenting ahead of his visit, Bill Gates thanked France for its support of the GAVI Alliance, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, and the Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and encouraged France to place a priority on health and development in the coming months.

“Vaccines are one of the best long-term investments we can make to prevent disease and ensure children have a healthy start to life. They are a great example of smart aid, for just a few Euros per dose, a child can be protected for life. We hope that President Sarkozy will continue to champion vaccines, and the need to use vaccines to reach a final end to polio, at this year’s G8 summit.”

Working with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, ONE France will share the proof with all its members, their friends and families, across its social networks, and with its partners in the NGO community.

“In France, development aid is always associated in people’s minds with old stories of Françafrique, complicated relations with former African colonies, and a mixture of guilt and economic interests. But France is a very important donor, and it knows how to lead its partners to action like last year when it led by example for the replenishment of the Global Fund,” says Guillaume Grosso, director of ONE France.

“Living Proof aims to challenge perceptions about aid and will let the French know that it helped accomplish progress. The French people’s commitment to the fight against poverty is necessary to encourage their leaders to keep their promises. Announcements are frequently made, but rarely followed by action. The economic crisis they are struggling with in their daily lives should not make the French forget that cutbacks in programs and freezes in the development budget will cost millions of lives and destabilize vulnerable regions of the world.”

NOTE : Bill Gates will be sharing similar presentations with policymakers in Strasbourg and Berlin later in the week.

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This press release is reprinted by Alanna Shaikh out of an obscure sense of guilt. It does not represent the opinions of Alanna Shaikh or any of her employers.

Saving Lives at Birth: A Grand Challenge for Development

In Wednesday, March 9, in Washington, USAID launched a new partnership that aims to spark revolutionary advances to dramatically reduce maternal and newborn deaths around the world.

This partnership between USAID, the Government of Norway, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Grand Challenges Canada, and The World Bank is a testament to the belief that, by harnessing the spirit of ingenuity, we can create new technologies, better service delivery models, and improved "demand side" innovations that empower women and their families to be aware of and access health care at the time of birth, and adopt healthy behaviors.

As part of Saving Lives at Birth: A Grand Challenge for Development, these partners expect to provide nearly $14 million in grants during the first round of funding. Over five years, the partners aim to invest at least $50 million in groundbreaking and sustainable projects with the potential to have a transformative effect on the lives of pregnant women and their babies in the hardest-to-reach corners of the world.

Science and technology can do more than address specific technical challenges; it inspires collective action by turning impossible challenges into solvable problems. To accelerate substantial and sustainable progress against maternal and newborn deaths and stillbirths at the community level, we must harness the collective imagination and ingenuity of problem solvers from a broad range of disciplines.

We call on for-profit companies, non-governmental organizations, academic and medical research institutions, faith-based organizations, civic groups, and foundations – individually or in partnership – to take up this challenge.

• For more information on the initiative and a video of the launch presentation, please visit http://www.savinglivesatbirth.net/
• Download the Request for Application (RFA)
• Read the Fact Sheet: Saving Lives at Birth: A Grand Challenge for Development [PDF, 213KB]

Please help us spread the word and share this notice with a broad range of experts in a variety of disciplines.

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This press release is reprinted by Alanna Shaikh out of an obscure sense of guilt. It does not represent the opinions of Alanna Shaikh or any of her employers.

Fighting Wheat Stem Rust

Armed with US$40 million, global research team to fight
Wind-borne wheat pathogen that endangers food security worldwide

With grant from DFID and Gates Foundation, Cornell University and partners
will ramp up surveillance; provide farmers with resistant wheat varieties

ITHACA, NY (27 February 2011)—The United Kingdom’s Department of International Development (DFID) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today announced they will invest US$40 million in a global project led by Cornell University to combat deadly strains of Ug99, an evolving wheat pathogen that poses a dangerous threat to global food security, particularly in the poorest nations of the developing world.

The five-year grant, made to the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat (DRRW) project at Cornell will support efforts to identify new stem rust resistant genes in wheat, improve surveillance, and multiply and distribute rust-resistant wheat seed to farmers and their families.

“We cannot overstate the importance of this announcement on the part of two of the most important funders of solutions for addressing the causes of poverty, hunger and disease in the developing world,” said Ronnie Coffman, Cornell professor of plant breeding and genetics and director of DRRW. “Against the backdrop of rising food prices, and wheat in particular, researchers worldwide will be able to play an increasingly vital role in protecting wheat fields from dangerous new forms of stem rust, particularly in countries whose people can ill afford the economic impact of damage to this vital crop.”

First discovered in 1998 in Uganda, the original Ug99 has also been found in Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan, Yemen and Iran. A Global Cereal Rust Monitoring System, housed at the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), suggests variants of Ug99 are on the march, threatening major wheat-growing areas of Southern and Eastern Africa, the Central Asian Republics, the Caucasus, the Indian subcontinent, South America, Australia and North America.

“We applaud DFID for taking a leadership role in supporting agricultural research,” said Sylvia Mathews Burwell, president of the Global Development Program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “We hope other governments in both the developed and developing world and donors will follow the UK’s lead and increase investments to provide small-scale farmers with the tools they need to improve their yields so they can feed their families and overcome poverty.”

The new grant will allow Cornell to build on international efforts to combat stem rust—particularly Ug99 and its variants. Among the university’s partners are national research centers in Kenya and Ethiopia, and scientists at two international agricultural research centers that focus on wheat, the Mexico-based International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (known by its Spanish acronym as CIMMYT), and the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), in Syria. The FAO and advanced research laboratories in the United States, Canada, China, Australia, Denmark and South Africa also collaborate on the project. The DRRW project now involves more than 20 leading universities and research institutes throughout the world, and scientists and farmers from more than 40 countries.

As part of the agreement, DFID will contribute approximately US$15M and the foundation US$25M to the DRRW over the next five years.

“It is important that public and private institutions work together to develop long-term, sustainable and effective solutions to make life better for the world in which we live,” said David J. Skorton, president of Cornell University.

In the 1950s, a fatal strain of wheat stem rust invaded North America and ruined 40 percent of the spring wheat crop. The late Norman Borlaug, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and a renowned plant breeder, led a team of scientists who developed high-yield rust-resistant varieties that helped launch the Green Revolution. But 50 years later, virulent new strains of the pathogen emerged unexpectedly in Uganda, putting at risk most of the wheat planted in farmers’ fields worldwide.

Two other rusts pose threats to wheat, leaf and stripe, or yellow rust. Stem rust, of which Ug99 is a variant, is the most feared because it can quickly lead to the loss of an entire harvest.

Since 2008, when the DRRW project was first funded with US$2.8 million from the foundation, researchers have distributed new resistant wheat varieties for testing and evaluation in 40 countries; strengthened nurseries in Kenya and Ethiopia for screening wheat for vulnerability to rusts, and distributed nearly five tons of Ug99-resistant seed for planting in the at-risk nations of Ethiopia, Kenya, Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Nepal.

“Wheat is one of Kenya’s most important crops, second only to maize. Our people depend upon it for food security,” said Ruth Wanyera, a plant pathologist with the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute in Njoro. “We hope this important investment on the part of the Gates Foundation and DFID will prompt other funders and policy makers in the industrialized and developing worlds to support efforts to protect our global wheat supply.”

Initially called to arms by Norman Borlaug, the DRRW works closely with the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative (BGRI) on a global strategy to avert agricultural disaster for wheat.

“This is a major and much-welcomed investment,” said Jeanie Borlaug, daughter of the late Norman Borlaug, and chair of the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative (BGRI). “My Dad used to say, ‘rust never sleeps.’ The world’s leaders are finally waking up to the threat.”

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This press release is reprinted by Alanna Shaikh out of an obscure sense of guilt. It does not represent the opinions of Alanna Shaikh or any of her employers.

Leveraging Agriculture for Improving Nutrition and Health

This week, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) is bringing together over 900 international leaders at its 2020 Conference “Leveraging Agriculture for Improving Nutrition and Health.”

This is the first major global conference to discuss how agriculture, nutrition and health experts can work together to sustainably reduce malnutrition for the world’s most vulnerable people, leveraging the power of agriculture.

I thought you might be interested to know that Sylvia Mathews Burwell, president of the Global Development Program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, delivered one of the keynote speeches. Her remarks highlight the need to tap the full potential of agricultural development to combat malnutrition, and pointed out the work of foundation grantees including IFPRI, Harvest Plus, and Landesa.

Her full speech can be found here, and a blog here.

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This press release is reprinted by Alanna Shaikh out of an obscure sense of guilt. It does not represent the opinions of Alanna Shaikh or any of her employers.

Bill Gates Releases Third Annual Letter, Calling for Sustained Foreign Aid to Boost Global Health and Development

Speaking at Historic Roosevelt House, Gates Outlines Why the World Should Prioritize Vaccines and the Eradication of Polio

NEW YORK, January 31, 2011 – Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, argues the case for polio eradication and expanded childhood immunization in his third annual letter released today. The letter, a personal account of his priorities, also calls on governments to invest in foreign aid, even in the face of a tough economic climate.

“If societies can’t provide for people’s basic health, if they can’t feed and educate people, then their populations and problems will grow and the world will be a less stable place,” Gates writes in the letter. “Whether you believe it a moral imperative or in the rich world’s enlightened self-interest, securing the conditions that will lead to a healthy, prosperous future for everyone is a goal I believe we all share.”

Gates also emphasizes the need to continue improving U.S. schools, and urges more leadership, innovation and investment for issues like maternal and child health, malaria, HIV/AIDS and agriculture.

Gates focuses on polio eradication as a key example of the value of vaccines. Thanks to a global childhood immunization campaign, polio has been reduced 99 percent, and is on the threshold of becoming only the second disease ever eradicated.

“Getting rid of polio will mean that no child will be paralyzed or die by this disease,” said Gates. “Any major advance in the human condition requires resolve and courageous leadership. We are so close, but we have to finish the last leg of the journey.”

New donations to polio were announced last week from the U.K. government and from His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, which will reduce the gap of $720 million that is needed to fully fund polio eradication efforts through mid-2012. A recent study estimated that eradication could save the world up to $50 billion due to reduced treatment costs and gains in productivity.

Gates released his letter with a speech at the historic Roosevelt House, the former New York home of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, where the future president recuperated after being stricken with polio at age 39. Roosevelt and his law partner Basil O’Conner later launched the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, whose March of Dimes campaign mobilized the country against polio and raised millions of dollars to support the search for an effective vaccine.

Polio once threatened children worldwide, but there are now just four countries where polio has never stopped circulating – Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Pakistan. Last year saw remarkable progress in Nigeria and India, where polio cases dropped by about 95 percent compared to 2009. But even a few isolated cases can cross borders and spark an outbreak.

Gates emphasizes that achieving polio eradication would energize the global health field by showing the real impact of health investments – particularly investments in vaccines. Last year, Gates called for the next 10 years to be the Decade of Vaccines, a vision of a world ten years from now where the global health community has come together to deliver life-saving vaccines to every child who needs them, and to invest in vaccines that don’t yet exist.

“Not everyone can go into the field, or even donate. But every one of us can be an advocate for people whose voices are often not heard,” Gates writes. “I encourage everyone to get involved in working for solutions to the challenges those people face. It will draw you in for life.”

About the Annual Letter

• Bill Gates’ 2011 annual letter can be found at: www.gatesfoundation.org/annualletter
• A live webcast of the “Polio Eradication and the Power of Vaccines” event on January 31, 2011 can be viewed at: www.gatesfoundation.org at 9:30 am ET / 6:30 am PT

About the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, it focuses on improving people’s health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the United States, it seeks to ensure that all people—especially those with the fewest resources—have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life. Based in Seattle, Washington, the foundation is led by CEO Jeff Raikes and Co-chair William H. Gates Sr., under the direction of Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett. Learn more at www.gatesfoundation.org or join the conversation at Facebook and Twitter.

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This press release is reprinted by Alanna Shaikh out of an obscure sense of guilt. It does not represent the opinions of Alanna Shaikh or any of her employers.

Live Bill Gates Webcast on Polio & Vaccines -- Mon, 1/31 at 9:30 AM EST

Please remember to tune in for a special webcast featuring Bill Gates, ABC World News anchor Diane Sawyer, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David Oshinsky, and a panel of experts on:

Polio Eradication and the Power of Vaccines

Monday, January 31, 9:30 a.m. ET at www.gatesfoundation.org

To launch Bill Gates’ 3rd annual letter, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation invites you to join a conversation about the extraordinary progress in the fight to eradicate polio and the enormous lifesaving potential of vaccines.

Thanks to a global childhood immunization effort, polio has been reduced by 99% and we are on the cusp of eradicating only the second disease in history. This presents a powerful case for the value of vaccines.

Unique Perspectives
Bill Gates will join global leaders to discuss what the past can teach us about protecting children around the world from polio and other vaccine-preventable diseases. The event will be moderated by ABC World News anchor Diane Sawyer, and speakers include:

• Dr. David Oshinsky, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, “Polio: An American Story”
• Professor Helen Rees, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa; and Chair, WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization
• Dr. Ciro de Quadros, Executive Vice President, Sabin Vaccine Institute

Panelists will discuss why now is the time to rid the world of polio and ensure all children have access to lifesaving vaccines. No child deserves to face the threat of preventable disease, whether it’s polio, measles, or pneumonia.

To watch the live webcast, please visit www.gatesfoundation.org on Monday, January 31 at 9:30 a.m. ET. It will also be available on demand following the event.

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This press release is reprinted by Alanna Shaikh out of an obscure sense of guilt. It does not represent the opinions of Alanna Shaikh or any of her employers.

UK Government and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announce new commitment to eradicating polio

UK Government and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announce new commitment to eradicating polio

Citing dramatic gains achieved with polio vaccines, Prime Minister David Cameron, Bill and Melinda Gates call on world leaders to finish the job

DAVOS, Switzerland – British Prime Minister David Cameron said today that the United Kingdom would double its current contribution to polio eradication.

Mr Cameron called on other donors to back the Global Polio Eradication Initiative as he announced the UK’s commitment that will see an extra 45 million children fully vaccinated against the disease.

In 20 years, polio cases have been reduced by 99 percent and the disease is now close to being only the second in history – after smallpox – to be wiped out. In 2010, India and Nigeria – historically the toughest challenges to eradication – cut cases by 95 percent each. However, today polio still exists in more than a dozen countries, crippling and killing children.

Prime Minister Cameron said: "I passionately believe that we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to rid the world of the evil of polio. We have the vaccines and the tools to do it. All that’s missing is real and sustained political will to see this effort through to the end.

“That’s why I’m announcing today that the UK is prepared to fully vaccinate an additional 45 million children against polio, through a doubling of our support to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative over the next two years.

“In return for that commitment, we ask other donors to do their bit, and affected countries to strengthen their routine immunisation programmes.

“We have come so far in eradicating polio. We are so close to delivering a polio-free world for all our children. Let’s finish the job. And let’s eradicate polio once-and-for-all.”

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Bill Gates announced that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has committed an additional $102 million to support efforts to stamp out the disease.

“Eliminating the last one percent of polio requires the kind of political leadership shown by the UK government and Prime Minister Cameron today,” Gates said. “Eradicating polio requires innovative thinking and political will, as well as funding from a range of donors, to support an aggressive program that will get the job done.”

Andrew Mitchell, Britain’s Secretary of State for International Development, said:

“Britain is at the forefront of the fight against polio. We have already provided funding for 1.2 billion doses of polio vaccine for children over the past two years and our increased commitment means many millions more will be protected from this terrible disease.

“The ultimate goal of full eradication can only be achieved if other countries and organisations play their part and release funds."

Dr Margaret Chan, Director General of the World Health Organization, which leads the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), joined the Prime Minister and Mr Gates for the announcement.

“These new investments come at a critical time in the fight against polio,” said Dr Chan. “We have a window of opportunity now, with cases at an all time low. But if there is polio anywhere we are at risk of polio everywhere. Only eradication will ensure that polio does not reemerge as a global threat.”

The new funds from the UK, as well as support announced from His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi this week, will help fill a funding gap of $720 million.

Polio remains endemic in four countries – Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Pakistan – and there were outbreaks of the disease last year in Angola, DRC and Tajikistan.

The new funding will help the GPEI purchase vaccines and conduct immunization activities. In the next two years, more than three billion doses of oral polio vaccine will be needed to immunize young children. Funding is also required for activities such as surveillance and technical assistance. Polio eradication staff are now the single largest source of technical assistance for immunization in low-income countries. The program will also allocate new funds for emergency response efforts in areas like Republic of Congo, which recently have experienced large outbreaks of the virus.

Last year at the World Economic Forum, Bill and Melinda Gates called for the next 10 years to be the Decade of Vaccines. The vision is a world 10 years from now where the global health community has come together to deliver life-saving vaccines to every child who needs them, and to invest in vaccines that don’t yet exist.

This first year has seen remarkable success:

• A new meningitis vaccine launched in Burkina Faso
• GAVI’s Advance Market Commitment mechanism to fund pneumococcal vaccine delivery in Latin America and Africa
• Unprecedented reductions in polio in Nigeria (down to 19 cases from 388 in 2009, and India (41 cases vs 741 in 2009)
• Significant progress in developing a viable malaria vaccine.

Vaccine partners from across the world are coming together to define a Global Vaccine Action Plan to guide the discovery, development and delivery of lifesaving vaccines over the next decade.

About the UK Polio Announcement at Davos January 2011

Subject to two conditions, the UK will double its support to GPEI over the next two years (to £40m annually) which will help fully vaccinate an additional 45m children. The two conditions will apply only to the additional £20m each year:

• first, that this additional support is underpinned by increased commitment to strengthen routine immunisation. Routine, country based immunisation programmes are vital to ensuring that polio eradication can be maintained in the future. Countries need to make national health systems capacity a priority now if we expect to maintain eradication in the future.
• second, that our support has the additional effect of leveraging more effort from others in order to broaden and deepen funding through a matching fund basis.
• How will the matching basis work? For every $5 pledged by others from 1 January 2011 to 31 December 2012, the UK will increase its support by $1 up to a maximum of the additional £40m announced.

The UK’s challenge aims to help GPEI expand the donor base and strengthen sustainable funding options going into the future and creates an opportunity for others to get involved.

About the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, it focuses on improving people’s health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the United States, it seeks to ensure that all people—especially those with the fewest resources—have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life. Based in Seattle, Washington, the foundation is led by CEO Jeff Raikes and Co-chair William H. Gates Sr., under the direction of Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett. Learn more at www.gatesfoundation.org

About the Global Polio Eradication Initiative

The Global Polio Eradication Initiative is a public-private partnership led by national governments and spearheaded by the World Health Organization (WHO), Rotary International, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Its goal is to eradicate polio worldwide.

The US Government, Rotary International, the Government of India, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the UK Government are the main funders of GPEI.

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This press release is reprinted by Alanna Shaikh out of an obscure sense of guilt. It does not represent the opinions of Alanna Shaikh or any of her employers.

Special Webcast on Polio

Please tune in for a special webcast featuring Bill Gates, ABC World News anchor Diane Sawyer, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David Oshinsky, and a panel of experts on:

Polio Eradication and the Power of Vaccines

Monday, January 31, 9:30 a.m. ET at www.gatesfoundation.org

To launch Bill Gates’ 3rd annual letter, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation invites you to join a conversation about the extraordinary progress in the fight to eradicate polio and the enormous lifesaving potential of vaccines.

Thanks to a global childhood immunization effort, polio has been reduced by 99% and we are on the cusp of eradicating only the second disease in history. This presents a powerful case for the value of vaccines.

Unique Perspectives
Bill Gates will join global leaders to discuss what the past can teach us about protecting children around the world from polio and other vaccine-preventable diseases. The event will be moderated by ABC World News anchor Diane Sawyer, and speakers include:

• Dr. David Oshinsky, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, “Polio: An American Story”
• Professor Helen Rees, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa; and Chair, WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization
• Dr. Ciro de Quadros, Executive Vice President, Sabin Vaccine Institute

Panelists will discuss why now is the time to rid the world of polio and ensure all children have access to lifesaving vaccines. No child deserves to face the threat of preventable disease, whether it’s polio, measles, or pneumonia.

To watch the live webcast, please visit www.gatesfoundation.org <http://www.gatesfoundation.org> on Monday, January 31 at 9:30 a.m. ET. It will also be available on demand following the event.

About the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, it focuses on improving people’s health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the United States, it seeks to ensure that all people—especially those with the fewest resources—have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life. Based in Seattle, Washington, the foundation is led by CEO Jeff Raikes and Co-chair William H. Gates Sr., under the direction of Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett.

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This press release is reprinted by Alanna Shaikh out of an obscure sense of guilt. It does not represent the opinions of Alanna Shaikh or any of her employers.