Feature: World's richest man's imprint on Africa ( 2003-09-28 13:57) (oneWorld.net)
Andrew Carnegie once wrote that to die rich was to
die in disgrace. Like the 19th-century Pennsylvania steel magnate, Microsoft
founder Bill Gates seems determined not to let that happen.
Mr. Gates has promised to give away 95 per cent of his personal fortune,
currently valued at $46 billion. He has already endowed the Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation, created to help fight disease and improve education worldwide,
with $24 billion; since its inception in 2000, the foundation has distributed
more than $6.2 billion. And just this week, during his and his wife's
three-nation tour of Southern Africa, Gates committed an unprecedented $168
million in private money to fight malaria.
While the Gateses embrace old-style charity, their methods are thoroughly
21st century. Much of their money goes to finding scientific solutions to the
world's health problems - like the development of malaria vaccines and new
AIDS -prevention techniques. Health workers in Africa say that the world's
richest couple are profoundly affecting the direction of research and aid, and
creating new hope for tackling some of the most difficult problems here.
"I think it's been quite remarkable the influence they've had in revitalizing
and revolutionizing the global health agenda," says Peggy Morrow, vice president
of the Program for Appropriate Technology in Health in Seattle, which is working
with the Gates Foundation on a variety of issues, including developing a malaria
vaccine and developing new screening techniques to prevent cervical cancer in
developing countries. "They have changed our priorities, as well as some of the
ways in which we work."
An example in Mozambique
Observers say the size and scope of their grants have enabled the Gateses to
highlight issues the world has forgotten about. The grant for malaria research,
announced Sunday at a rural clinic in Mozambique, is a prime example. Although
malaria strikes more than 300 million people every year and kills more than 1.1
million, most of them children and most of them in Africa, it has received just
a fraction of the attention and spending of AIDS.
Efforts to create a vaccine have been in development for at least 15 years,
but lack of money slowed progress. The Gates Foundation, in partnership with
GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals and others, is now funding vaccine trials in rural
Manhica, Mozambique, and Gambia. If successful, a malaria vaccine could be
available in less than 10 years - still a long way off, but closer than if no
Gates funding were provided.
"Even two or three years ago, let alone 15 years ago, we couldn't have
imagined that private funding would come available," says Anne Walsh, director
of global communications for GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals. "Without the funding,
it would have been a lot more difficult and a lot slower."
The development of new prevention methods like vaccines and microbicides hold
great appeal to the Gateses, who see them as a long-term investment with
potentially high rewards. But they're also working to improve the use of
existing technology, and particularly to increase the rate of child
immunizations in poor countries.
Despite decades of work by organizations like the World Health
Organization(WHO), which helped eradicate smallpox, more than 30 million
children around the world still do not receive basic immunizations, and many new
vaccinations have yet to reach most of the developing world.
In 1999, the Gateses donated $750 million to found the Global Alliance for
Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), an organization aimed at improving access to
immunization. Since GAVI's founding, an additional 8 million children have
received basic vaccination and 30 million have received new vaccinations that
were previously unavailable.
"[Bill Gates] became interested in vaccines because, first of all, he saw
that this was something his own children were getting but children in other
countries were not," says Tore Godal, executive secretary of GAVI. "But also, I
think he saw it as analogous to software development. Difficult to develop, but
easy to use."
When Gates first started becoming involved in African health issues, there
was initial skepticism of his approach.
"There was some criticism at first, that he was very American to look at
short technological solutions to complex issues," says Lisa Jacobs, spokeswoman
for GAVI.
But officials at GAVI say those fears were quickly put to rest. Now, because
of the Gates's donations, GAVI, which brought together private donors,
international organizations like UNICEF, national governments, and
pharmaceutical companies, has become a model for funding large public-health
projects and an inspiration for the United Nations Global Fund to Fight
AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria.
"There is a recognition that the traditional way of doing this wasn't
working," says Dr. Godal, who says the Global Fund and other groups have now
borrowed GAVI's way of requiring countries to apply for funding from a central
fund. "We needed a new approach that would be innovative and risk taking."
Ordinary family, extraordinary wealth
In addition to the large new donation to fight this week, the Gateses checked
on the progress of research into microbicides in Johannesburg - new
AIDS-prevention methods for women to which they've donated $60 million. They
also met with Botswana's President Festus Mogae about that country's program to
give free antiretrovirals to people with HIV, to which the Gateses have donated
$50 million.
To date, the Gates Foundation has sent half its money to improve health in
the world's poorest countries. In addition to higher-profile diseases like AIDS
and malaria, it also contributes to fighting lesser-known problems, such as the
Guinea Worm Disease.
For Mrs. Gates, philanthropy is a responsibility of privilege. She describes
her family as an ordinary one - with extraordinary wealth.
"When we're back at home, we don't sit around the dinner table among
ourselves, talking about the enormous change that we're going to make across the
continent," she said in Mozambique. "But we do try and share with our children
some of the needs of children around the world, because we do want to instill in
our children a responsibility."
