The Global Fund is a central player in the progress being achieved on HIV, TB and malaria. It channels resources to help countries fight these diseases. I believe in its impact because I have seen it firsthand. Last summer while I was in Zambia I met Florence Daka, an HIV-positive mother of four. Florence is living proof of the tremendous progress we've made in HIV - she not only leads a healthy life, but her young son Stephen was born HIV free thanks to the antiretroviral treatment.

I've said before that the Global Fund is one of the kindest things people have ever done for each other. It's also one of the most valuable investments a donor can make. To date, the Fund has saved an estimated nine million lives treating HIV (four million people treated), preventing malaria (310 million bed nets delivered) and testing for infectious TB (10 million cases diagnosed). Because of its scale, the Global Fund has started to change the trajectory of epidemics. As a result, we have made real progress toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for health.

One of Global Fund's many strengths is its commitment to getting the most out of every dollar. For example, the Fund helps countries choose cost-effective medicines and other tools, and has helped significantly reduce their prices. Today, a bed net to protect a child from malaria costs just $10. The Fund is also serious about measurement. It sets clear goals and publishes performance metrics. (If you've read my Annual Letter, you know how critical this is.)

The Fund is poised to have an even greater impact in the future. Knowledge of how to effectively control HIV, TB and malaria is rapidly expanding. Promising tools, such as better medicines and vaccines, are in development. But it's the funding decisions made today that will determine our ability to capitalize on these opportunities for years to come.

In the decade since it was established, the Global Fund has received generous contributions from governments and other supporters around the world. My foundation has invested nearly $1.5 billion and I see the payoff in lives saved. So do developing countries, as more and more of them increase their own domestic spending on AIDS, TB and malaria. These investments deserve to continue.

• Catapult, launched just two months ago, is a crowdfunding site that helps organizations raise funds for projects to advance gender equality. Once a project has reached its fundraising goal, 100 percent of the funds are sent to the organization. Catapult expects partners to update donors at least twice on how their money is being put to work -- 90 days and one year after funding has been received.


• Since 2006, charity: water has raised more than 75 million to build thousands of freshwater wells, rainwater catchments, and BioSand filters in developing countries. One hundred percent of the funds they raise from the public go directly to water projects to help the 800 million people worldwide without access to clean water.


• DonorsChoose.org was started in 2000 by a social studies teacher in the Bronx. Teachers from around the U.S. post classroom project requests on the site -- everything from crayons for a kindergarten art class to seeds for starting a vegetable garden. Donors can give any amount they want, and for a limited time, ever dollar donated to STEM projects on the site will be matched if you enter the code HOLIDAY at checkout.


• Gifts that Give is a for-profit shopping website that contributes 20% of every merchandise sale to the charity of the purchaser's choice. Shoppers can choose from more than 1.2 million nonprofits and over 5,000 products.


• This year, CARE partnered with Threadless, an online t-shirt design community, to raise money to improve the health and education of women and children in developing countries. More than 100 artists submitted designs for a CARE-themed t-shirt. In an online vote, "Mother is a Daughter is a Mother" by Israeli artist Shahaf Gurevich, was chosen as the winning design. With support from our foundation, 100 percent of the net proceeds from the sale of each shirt benefit CARE.

Innovations and technology must ensure that the farmers in India are able to work easily and provide them with some sort of relief. It must bring in an innovative way to spread education; basic and good educational foundations must be laid for technology to have any kind of impact.

Women are the single most valuable economic resource in the world. Any economist will tell you that knowledge capital is the only sure investment an economy can make, as it does not experience diminishing returns. The education of girls and women will not only benefit them, but their children, family, and then their country. An increase in the proportion of a nation's women with a secondary school education largely increases that nation's annual per capita income.

Illiteracy is not the leading cause of death anywhere, but with more educated and creative people in the world I feel that many problems could be solved. Essentially then, you are building a legacy, not of aid, but of empowerment. You are giving people the tools to set themselves free. When you build a school you are giving people the power to solve both the long-existing problems of yesterday and the unforeseen ones of tomorrow.

Charting a Course to End Malaria from bgC3 on Vimeo.

• Thanks to a 13 cent vaccine and a phenomenal effort led by Rotary International to reach all children with that vaccine, cases of this devastating disease have fallen by 99 percent in the past 20 years.


• Stopping the fight now is simply not an option. If we don't do the really hard work to eradicate polio now, the disease will come back with a vengeance. Polio anywhere is a threat everywhere.