Seattle Rotary 2006

August 23, 2006
Remarks by William H. Gates Sr., co-chair

Thank you for that warm welcome. I feel a little sheepish giving this talk today. After all, I’ve been asked to speak on the subject of global philanthropy to a group that has been a leader in the field for more than 60 years.

And I’m following Rahma al-Mahrouqi, who is helping her students prepare to lead the world I’ll be talking about.

After hearing Rahma, you don’t need me to tell you that the world is getting smaller. New York Times columnist Tom Friedman says it is now flat. I prefer to think that we are developing a new point of view about who our neighbors are.

They’re not just the family next door or people across town. They are university students from Oman. They are children in Bangladesh. They are human beings all over the world, and we see their faces on the television and the Internet every day. Billions of our neighbors are impoverished and sick, and they need our help.

Rotary has always lived by this principle, and you have made an enormous impact. To take just one example, when you spearheaded the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in 1988, polio still paralyzed 1,000 new children every day.

But thanks in large part to your generosity and the selflessness of thousands of you who have volunteered in more than 100 countries, the disease is on the verge of being eliminated. I understand that 20 Rotarians from the Seattle area are again headed to Ethiopia in the Fall to take another stab at eradicating this horrible disease. I applaud your efforts and I am sure your trip will be successful.

Back when that polio campaign was getting started, it was lonely on the front lines of global philanthropy. The suffering of poor people in poor countries was near the bottom of the priority list in rich countries.

But that’s changing. Look at the topics addressed at the last several G8 summit meetings. Read the expanded coverage of global issues in Time and Newsweek.

Government leaders and the ordinary citizens they represent are beginning to understand that all lives have equal value, no matter where they are being lived. And they are beginning to see that alleviating poverty, hunger, and disease around the world is a moral responsibility we all share.

This new sense of urgency marks a historic moment of promise for global philanthropy.

That’s why Bill, Melinda, and all of us at the foundation were so proud and excited this summer when Warren Buffet announced his generous gift, which will allow us to roughly double our grantmaking by 2009.

Why are we so optimistic about the future of global philanthropy? Because the scientists, governments, and political leaders are starting to do what it takes to change the status quo.

A premise of the work at our foundation is that science and technology have great potential to improve lives.

For example, tuberculosis infects one out of every three people in the world. The last time scientists introduced a new TB drug, most of the people alive today hadn’t been born yet.

But in the past five years, governments, pharmaceutical companies, and philanthropies have come together to undertake to solve the problem, and there are more than 25 new anti-TB drugs and compounds in some stage of development.

Let me tell you the story of how a very simple technology is empowering poor women to protect their families from destitution. In Malawi, life expectancy is about 37 years. When a man dies, his parents and siblings often seize his possessions and his money, leaving his wife and children with nothing.

To address this injustice, one of our grantees, Opportunity International, is handing out what are known as smart cards. They are similar to our ATM cards.

Smart cards let women keep money in super-secure savings accounts that are protected by a thumbprint scanner. And when somebody with the wrong thumbprint tries to make a withdrawal, they can’t.

Smart cards have become so popular in Malawi that they’re now regularly given as gifts at wedding showers.

Another sign of progress is that governments are spending more than ever before on the problems of the developing world. To take just one example, in 2003, President Bush launched his Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR.

PEPFAR promised $15 billion over five years to fight AIDS. This was the largest single pledge ever made to fight a disease—and the first time the United States committed billions, not millions, to fighting AIDS.

The third reason for optimism is that politicians and other leaders are showing the will to solve the extraordinarily difficult problems of developing countries. For example, six years ago, many governments, philanthropies, multilateral organizations, and NGOs created the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations, or GAVI. GAVI makes sure children in poor countries get basic, lifesaving vaccines.

There are now 75 developing countries doing the hard work of carrying out immunization programs.

GAVI has funded more than 100 million vaccinations so far, against diseases like tetanus, measles, and hepatitis B. That is why five countries committed an additional $4 billion to the effort last year.

With so much to be hopeful about, we must also remember that it’s not yet time to celebrate. Science and technology, money, and political will are not the ends we seek. They are a means to that end, which is saving lives.

So what can we do to help make this goal a reality?

Primarily, through respected groups like Rotary, we can be strong advocates.

The problems we’re trying to address are so huge that we cannot hope to solve them if businesses and governments don’t accept a major role. And as much progress as they have made, the fight against poverty and disease can still lose out to politics.

Last month, global trade talks broke down when a few countries, including the United States, could not agree to reconsider large subsidies to farmers. Governments cannot continue to let parochial concerns get in the way of enlightened trade policies.

When you raise your voices and tell them that, leaders around the world will hear you.

That’s exactly why, in 2002, a group of Seattle-ites formed an organization called the Initiative for Global Development. The IGD is a nationwide network of business and civic leaders who urge policy-makers to develop an agenda to wipe out extreme global poverty.

Sally Jewell described this organization when she spoke to you last November. Two months ago, President Bush gave the keynote at the first IGD summit, so it looks like the right people are paying attention.

The global philanthropy effort is large and diverse, and there are countless ways to join the fight. Rotary is one of the best, but there are lots more organizations that harness the energy of people who want to make a difference.

Right here in the Seattle area, there is World Vision, which helps poor children in more than 100 countries. There is Global Partnerships, a microlending group lead by Bill Clapp. There is the local chapter of Engineers Without Borders. The list goes on and on.

In the end, this is why I believe we will succeed in the fight against global poverty and disease. Because, as daunting as the challenges are, there is a growing crowd of people with the urge to help others on an international basis.

In my line of work, I hear all the time about people who hop on airplanes, fly to poor countries, and spend their time and energy helping poor people.

Let me finish today by telling you about just one of those people, a friend of mine named Margrit Elliot. Margrit is a nurse from up in La Conner. Twice a year she organizes a team of doctors and nurses to travel to Bhutan, where they train local doctors, treat burn victims, and perform dozens of operations to repair cleft palates.

The team has included members from Washington to Wisconsin to West Virginia, not to mention Italy and Holland. They are definitely changing lives.

Margrit tells the story of a 15-year-old girl, Pema, who had a cleft lip. She had lived her entire life indoors, never going to school, because she was so ashamed of the way she looked.

A few days after her surgery, one of the doctors on Margrit’s team took Pema on her first visit to the museum. He could see right away that this beautiful young girl would have a future full of school, work, friends, and family—and as Margrit puts it “all those things we take for granted.”

This is the bottom line.
As long as there are people like Margrit, and folks like you at Seattle #4 who are concerned—who contribute money, time, and effort—as long as there are human beings who love their neighbors and want to help them—then we can all have confidence in the future of global philanthropy.

Thank you.