United Methodist Conference

May 1, 2008
Prepared remarks by William H. Gates Sr., co-chair

Thank you.

There are 1,000 delegates here today. You share your devotion to God. You share your devotion to the United Methodist Church. But you differ in many ways.

For example: Those of you who come from North America have probably never seen malaria, or any disease like it. You have never had to be afraid that it would take the people you love away from you.

But many of you who come from Africa see malaria every day. On Sundays, when you offer prayers for the sick, you envision children shivering with this disease that turns a mosquito bite into a death sentence.

That stark difference among you is a tragedy.

The world has wiped malaria out on one continent, and allowed it to keep claiming lives on another.

But here today, you are deciding to turn that tragedy into a triumph. You have come together—one thousand delegates in Fort Worth representing 12 million United Methodists around the world—to say that you’ll no longer accept malaria. To say that you are all brothers and sisters. And brothers and sisters don't sit back and watch each other die—not when there's a way to stop it.

I am here today to thank you on behalf of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. We are proud to be your partner in this campaign to end the world’s worst killer of children. We believe the campaign cannot succeed without you.

So I am asking each of you to make a personal commitment to help your church end malaria.

This disease is thousands of years old, and human beings have struggled against it for just as long. But at this very moment, the goal of wiping malaria off the face of the earth is more realistic than ever before.

Now we have the science and technology to save more lives. And now we have the will to do it. You're proof of that.

Almost 300 years ago, your founder, John Wesley, explained the moral implications of what is now fashionably called globalization. He said: "I look on all the world as my parish." In that single sentence, he described the bonds of mutual responsibility that hold us all together. Nowadays, people write long books trying to express the same idea.

And for good reason. That idea is the key ingredient for a peaceful world in which all people are treated as equally precious. When enough of us arrive at the conclusion that parish lines and national borders cannot wipe away our common humanity, then we will do what is necessary to end needless suffering. Then the human impulse that told us it is wrong for people in North America to die of malaria will tell us that it is wrong for people anywhere to die of it.

The fight against malaria is going to take billions of dollars. Some of that money will pay for tools that already exist–like bed nets and insecticides that protect people from disease-carrying mosquitoes, and anti-malarial drugs that treat people who do get sick. Some of the money will fund the research and development of new and better tools, like a vaccine. So when you make your donation, you'll be saving lives.

The fight against malaria is going to take more health clinics in more countries. That's where people get the education and the medicines they need. The United Methodist Church has been operating health care clinics in Africa for more than 150 years. So when you grow your church, you'll be saving lives.

The fight against malaria is going to take politicians who make it a priority. Because when governments get involved, the results can be astounding.

Three years ago, President Bush committed the U.S. government to the fight when he announced the President's Malaria Initiative. Here's what that initiative has already done. In Zanzibar, the number of infants with malaria has gone down 95 percent in just two years!

So when you raise your voice and tell your political leaders that malaria is no longer acceptable, you'll be saving lives. 

But more than anything, the fight against malaria is going to take a firm commitment to John Wesley's idea. Because that idea is the source of the world's will to end malaria. You are 12 million people armed with the conviction that all the world is your parish, which makes you the most powerful weapon there is against disease.

The truth is, I am newer to this worldview than you are. But I have spent the last decade being converted. Since my son and his wife started their foundation, I have learned every day how small the world is.

I can trace my own learning about malaria to a trip I took last year to Zambia. On the way over, I read through a long list of statistics suggesting that the country's health crisis was all-encompassing. Malnutrition. Poverty. Rampant disease. One particularly discouraging problem is that there are only 540 doctors to serve a population of 12 million.

Imagine if Section A and Section B down there had to care for the entire population of Dallas-Fort Worth. And Houston. And San Antonio.

But Zambia has launched a very ambitious national campaign against malaria. Its goal is to cut malaria by 80 percent by 2015. And every person I talked to in Zambia displayed a seriousness of purpose that convinced me they will achieve their goal.

I was particularly impressed by one young man who explained the extraordinarily complicated logistics that go into delivering bed nets to rural communities. These are the hardest to reach places in a hard to reach country, but they are doing it!

The nets start out in warehouses in Dar es Salaam or Durban. From there, they go by truck to a network of depots throughout Zambia. From there, they go by 23,000 bicycles to families who live far away from roads. That’s 23,000 bicycles covering a land mass that's about the size of Italy and Sweden combined.

Last year, health workers in Zambia distributed 3 million bed nets. In just two years, the percentage of Zambians with at least one net has gone from just 20 to almost 80.

Other African countries are embarking on equally ambitious programs. And the money you raise is going to help them succeed.

I see so many signs of hope, so many reasons to be optimistic.

Through the Nothing But Nets campaign, millions of people are sending a net to save a life in countries they’ve never even heard of. Maybe your net was delivered by one of those bicycles in Zambia.

French airline passengers now pay a small tax that buys anti-malarial drugs for Africa. One of the organizations that benefits is the Churches Health association of Zambia. The United Methodist Church is a longstanding member of the association, which provides health care for 4 million Zambians.

At a research facility in Mozambique, the government of Spain is helping to fund advanced clinical trials of a malaria vaccine candidate called RTS-S. The results have been very promising so far. We have never been this close to a malaria vaccine.

Do you notice a pattern emerging? France and Spain; Mozambique and Zambia. John Wesley's idea that we should look on all the world as our parish is gaining traction.

As you raise money to build up your own health care infrastructure in Africa and to support The Global Fund for AIDS, TB, and Malaria, you are demonstrating how powerful partnership in this fight can be. Just a decade ago, The Global Fund did not even exist, and in a short time it has become the most important source of malaria funding in the world.

As more and more people join the fight against malaria, you hear some of them making the case that global health is an economic issue or a national security issue. That's all right with me. If we have to make that argument to get the public funds we need to fight disease, we should do it. But to me, disease is not an economic issue or a national security issue; it is a humanitarian issue. People are dying, and we can save them; and that ought to be enough.

People suffering from malaria are human beings. They are not national security assets. They are not markets for our exports. They are not allies in the war against terrorism. They are human beings who have infinite worth in their own right without any reference to us. They have mothers who love them and children who need them and friends who cherish them–and we ought to help them.

You believe that too, and that is why you have chosen to lead this campaign. And you are leaders among leaders. I hope you will take this message back home and share it with friends in your congregation. They will share it with their friends, too. That is how the United Methodist Church will lead this campaign.

I would like to close by giving you a very specific example of what your leadership looks like.

This is a story a friend of mine back home in Seattle, a woman named Candy Marshall, told me the other day. Candy works at the foundation in our global health program, but she grew up on a farm in Nebraska, and she attended the United Methodist church every week. When she was a girl, the church kept a birthday bank, and every year the children deposited one penny for every year of their lives.

Well, a few weeks ago, her mother sent her a note. Turns out Candy's church still keeps a birthday bank. This year, its gross receipts were $62. Candy's mom got a flyer in the mail from the United Methodists about your work in Africa, and it inspired the congregation. So the Williamsburg United Methodist Church in Nebraska sent $62 to Africa this year.

Candy's mother sent a little extra, she posted the flyer on the church bulletin board, and the minister has invited Candy to speak at church next time she's home.

That is what your leadership looks like. It starts with one penny. The pennies add up, and they can buy nets or drugs or fund research or refurbish hospitals. But the real power of your united church is that it teaches children in Nebraska and children in Zambia that they belong to the same parish.

That, in a single sentence, is your gift. And it will end malaria.

Thank you.