Mr. and Ms. Gates Go To Washington, Host Roundtable On Global Health Funding

"We're here to thank the U.S. taxpayers. Your investment in global health is working."

That's the "official" reason Melinda French Gates and Bill Gates are in Washington, D.C., today.

As spin goes, it's a nice line. But obviously the Gateses didn't go to all the trouble and expense of launching a multimedia experience that debuts tonight at 7 p.m. at Washington's uber-chic Harman Center For The Arts (with simultaneous Webcast) simply to thank lil' ol' taxpayin' me. (Couldn't they have just sent a card?)

The Gateses are visiting our nation's capital to reframe the conversation about global health aid. We should spend more time talking about what works, and how to measure it, they said. All too often, the gotcha-obsessed media focuses instead on what Melinda called "slippage."

We've been traveling in the developing world for over a decade. It's so different than it used to be. We're seeing a lot of hope on the ground. It's palatable. And yet so many reports focus on the negative -- people using malaria nets for fishing, or for a wedding dress. Of course you're going to get some slippage on the end. But what about the story that indoor residual spraying and malaria nets are saving lives...lots and lots of lives?

The Gateses met with about a dozen reporters this morning at the Monaco Hotel for a short roundtable discussion about global health funding. Currently, the U.S. budget is roughly $8 billion. The Obama Administration is looking at possibly increasing this aid, which means knowledge of what works is essential.

"Some things, like education funding, are tough to track because of all the management issues. Vaccinations are a lot easier to track, even in a place like Somalia," Bill told our roundtable group. He would like to see the U.S. budget increased, but has no particular number in mind.

Just think about the $8 billion very differently than you might. It's been wildly successful. It shows that if you make these investments early, it has a transformative effect. Hopefully, this will lead people to want to do more, even at a time when there are tough budget trade-offs.

Italy came up during the discussion because that country recently cut its AIDS budget dramatically without much outcry. "It's a terrible thing to have happen," said Bill. "And when a few governments go backwards, it makes it easier for other governments to do the same thing."

The Gateses argue that the further away you are from funding recipients, the less you may know about whether or not your money was well spent. Since the Gates Foundation team goes back and examines whether their programs worked or not, they are able to share this data.

At this morning's roundtable discussion, Melinda was visibly passionate about finding ways to spread the word about success stories. A few weeks ago, she began posting short videos on the Gates Foundation Web site.

But honestly, our talent isn't storytelling. Hopefully our talent is biotechnology, and creation of delivery systems for vaccinations and other life-saving tools. We hope to draw more filmmakers and storytellers into this work, to make sure the budgets for these programs aren't cut just because people don't have an understanding of the difference they can make.

No developing nation has become self-sufficient without first improving their health care delivery system. Often a little aid goes a long way -- for example, vaccinations save millions of lives each year. But according to Melinda, we've still made very little progress on the preventable deaths of newborns in underdeveloped countries. "Nearly four million infants die in that first 30 days. And a half-million mothers die in childbirth every year. We need more American investment in this area."

The world's poor are fortunate to have Melinda and Bill Gates as advocates. Whether or not you agree with the couple's priority list, the Gateses are serious about measuring and duplicating success. Now if only another billionaire philanthropist would come along and create a multimedia experience showing how health care reform could improve the lives of millions of Americans, and create a healthier climate for small business in the United States.

* * *

Melinda Gates speaking at the reporters' roundtable in Washington, D.C. on 10.27.09
(Photo: Diane Tucker)

Follow Diane Tucker on Twitter: www.twitter.com/dianetucker

Comments

[piggybackmom]

10/30/2009
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Thursday announced it's giving $4 million to help families who have been broadsided by the economic downturn here in Washington state.

The Gates Foundation is better known for its global health work to end poverty and disease in other countries. But Bill Gates, Sr., says this money will help those closest to home. The new funds will help disadvantaged families across the state get basic services, such as food, housing and legal aid.
http://kuow.org/program.php?id=18702

THANK YOU

[JTHC75]

Amazing, here's a guy who's giving away billions of dollars and is committed to saving millions of people in developing countries--the poorest of the poor--and all he gets is whining and complaining from HuffPo. You guys are so cool, surely if you had billions you'd be morally irreproachable, unlike that evil Bill "Scrooge" Gates.

Next up: "Mother Teresa--Why Didn't That Bitch Ever Help The Kids In My Neighborhood?"

[Diane Tucker - Huffpost Blogger]

(JTHC75) RE: Next up: "Mother Teresa -- Why Didn't That Bitch Ever Help The Kids In My Neighborhood?"

Funny. Maybe this answers the question...

In her Nobel Prize Lecture (1979), Mother Teresa said: "... I found the poverty of the West so much more difficult to remove. When I pick up a person from the street, hungry, I give him a plate of rice, a piece of bread, I have satisfied. I have removed that hunger. But a person that is shut out, that feels unwanted, unloved, terrified, the person that has been thrown out from society — that poverty is so hurtable [sic] and so much, and I find that very difficult."

[benightedone]

I don't think Mother Teresa would have slept well at night knowing others were hungry, cold, and sick while her wealth was $50 billion.

[benightedone]

You assume that because we question, than we dislike him-not so.
The man is asking tax payers to give more of their dollars to others in another countries while here at home it is needed.

A proportion.
So for example, you might think a new Lambourghini Diablo would cost $250,000, but in Bill Gates dollars that's 31 cents.

taken from http://www.templetons.com/brad/billg.html

He can afford to do what he is doing, but not all here at home can.

[benightedone]

How much did he pay in taxes last year?

I am all for helping save people through out the world.

[jef182]

Probably paid more in sales taxes in 1 year than you will pay in all taxes combined for your entire life.

[benightedone]

you assume he is shopping. what if he isn't.

[SusanStoHelit]

That's what I love about their charity approach - the focus on finding out what works. Never mind ideology, never mind gotcha journalism - look to what works.

[rtb61]

Focusing upon pockets of success is pointless, simply empty feel good stuff. Creating enduring change across the wide scale is the real and hard work. In order it is the struggle for democracy, preventing the entrenchment of a select wealth class, reducing levels of corruption to a point that no longer cripples the economy, preventing first world corporations from exploiting third world countries and, freeing third world countries from the greed of intellectual property costs. It has always been to easy to create temporary successes in scattered locations, only to see those successes later fail, when attention shifts to the next temporary success story. Being rich and greedy does not make you an expert on everything, the reality is the rich have demonstrated one single expertise, being greedy.

[Mikecroft]

One medical doctor at the Gateses presentation on Tuesday night thought the material presented on malaria was overly simplistic. Of course, that could simply be the result of the usual time constraints of a live presentation.

[billtmore]

Good for them! let them put their money to help those that are so poor and destitute probably beyond anything we can imagine. as far as the USA our TAXES should be helping take care of our needy instead of being spent on wars and jails.

[changeself]

vote for the politicians

who make laws

devastate the already poor

to boost our borderless corporates' bottomline

in which we work or invest to reap dividends from their criminal enterprises, and

we throw some change to the victims of our crimies, and

call it another good day and feel good about ourselves..

[Mikecroft]

Sounds like we're voting for the wrong politicians.

[benightedone]

Good his money went to help others that are poor in other countries.
I want my money, which are my tax dollars, to go to the poor here in the USA.

[Diane Tucker - Huffpost Blogger]

Passage of the FY2010 spending bill is anticipated soon. It likely will include $7.77 billion for Global Health Programs. Roughly $5.7 billion of that would be used to combat HIV/AIDS.

The Obama Administration is in the final stages of preparing its FY2011 budget request, which sources say may include a major new global health initiative. (I hear it's in development in the office of Deputy Secretary of State Jack Lew. If you have additional information, I hope you will post it here.)

[benightedone]

I am all for spending money to combat HIV/AIDS globally.

[valerief]

Looks to me like they're trying to develop new customers.

[jef182]

Is there something wrong with that?
Personally I'd welcome the day when a teenager in Liberia gets a shiny new X-Box for his birthday as opposed to having his parents murdered in the street and dying of AIDS when he's 12.

[benightedone]

What happens if he gets the shiny new X-Box and his parents still are murdered in the street and die from AIDS? It happens in the USA.

[DubyaGump]

Why not help the people in this country who actually purchase your products, wouldn't that be giving back to the community?

[indi1216]

That's what i say. Stop the dumb war and we should have spend that $1 Trillion on our own.

[chedet]

because we do not want to help ourselves first?

[benightedone]

You would think.

[Mikecroft]

Remember that old dictum..."charity begins at home?"

Still, of all the things we could be doing with our foreign aid dollars, putting some of them to work in the interest of global health seems like a worthy idea. I do wish, though, that the Gateses would speak out just as passionately about American children with no coverage. Or have they?

[textynn]

Gates are into gimmicky trendy "solutions" that can be turned onto money making industries. Im not interested in their input. Just because someone is rich doesn't mean they are an authority on everything. We need Single Payer. WE KNOW THAT'S WHAT WORKS. It's done all over the world. God please deliver us from this useless Elite and all this double talk. Nothing works for the Elite unless they can slap a big meter on it and demand the prices that THEY see fit.

[chedet]

gimmicky? hey at least they are spending it on the poor. What have they got to do with the senate no being able to pass the single payer system? Don't have to be mean just because we didn't get what we wanted.

[battlinbob]

Not sure why Obama is thinking about increasing the 8 billion budget.... don't we need that for our own health? looooonnnneeyy

[moongal6]

I sure wish they would take a nice family trip to Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. The people who live there are the American's you never see, but most of them go to bed hungry at night and have no hope. The infant mortality rate is 90%, in our country today, tomorrow and on and on. The Natives there have no casino's for income, they want their land back that was taken from them.
They are my Father's people, my people.

[LyssaBarnes]

Nobody wants to deal with this publicly. To admit that there is a problem raises too many questions on history and may blemish America's image.

While other ethnic groups have been allowed to take their arguments to the foreground, no one seems willing to address the lingering damage done to the Native population, even those with casinos on the reservations.

[piggybackmom]

They may be surprised at what they see just in their own neighborhood, USA.
Thanks for sharing.

[sheaintsayin]

This is heartbreaking, and the elected officials should be ashamed - they'd be the first to contact:

Sen. Tim Johnson
Democrat
SH-136 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510-4104
[phone]
[phone] Fax
E-mail: tim@johnso­n.senate.g­ov
Home Page: http://johnson.senate.gov/

Senator John Thune
Republican
383 Russell
Washington, DC 20510
[phone]
Fax:[phone]
Home Page: http://www.thune.senate.gov

Rep. Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin
Democrat
U.S. House of Representatives
1504 Longworth HOB
Washington, DC 20515
phone: [phone]
Toll Free: 1-866-371-8747 (Sioux Falls)
fax: [phone]
Home Page: http://hersethsandlin.house.gov/

[moongal6]

I Thank you all for your comments. The first week Obama was President, I contacted him about the situation. I applaud the Gates Foundation, Madonna, etc., but there really is so much they could do here.

[Zipzop]

I think the population wouldn't grow as fast if people were more sure that the children they have would live and that their own health problems would be taken care of.

[Diane Tucker - Huffpost Blogger]

(ZipZop) Bill Gates made a similar comment on the Gates Foundation Web site:

"A surprising but critical fact we learned was that reducing the number of deaths actually reduces population growth. Contrary to the Malthusian view that population will grow to the limit of however many kids can be fed, in fact parents choose to have enough kids to give them a high chance that several will survive to support them as they grow old. As the number of kids who survive to adulthood goes up, parents can achieve this goal without having as many children.

"This means that improved health is critical to getting a country into the positive cycle of increasing education, stability, and wealth. When health improves, people have smaller families and the government has more resources per person, so improving nutrition and education becomes much easier."

Here's the link:
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/annual-letter/Pages/2009-preventing-childhood-deaths.aspx

[kidolympic]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cS7TLN8p86A

I would be pleased if you could edit this befor u get back to the market...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G1-KBH-a6U&feature=fvsr

A good will gesture to buy the desserts in California would be a great help. (can't youjust choose one bad cause!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TWCk1WtKPM&feature=PlayList&p=DEBA73A4BCB49AD2&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=61

[Marlyn]

Ridiculous! Americans can't get health care for themselves, and yet the richest man in the world want us to deliver health care to the rest of the world?

[Diane Tucker - Huffpost Blogger]

(Marlyn) I applaud the Gateses global generosity. But like you, I'm concerned about people here in America as well. I wish President Obama was a little tougher, a little more like FDR and LBJ in the way he deals with Congress on the issue of health care reform. I also wish Congress wasn't in the pocket of insurers. Once upon a time, Congress used to represent people like you and me.

[DubyaGump]

I totally agree Marlyn, we should first take care of our own people

[chedet]

it's their money. let them spend it where ever they want ok?

[piggybackmom]

Okay it is their money. I wished that I got a "free lunch" too. Their tax dollars could help here at home and at the same time they will still be extremely wealthy. Now if, they don't like the idea of paying taxes( because of how our government misuses the money) then they start helping out more at home during this difficult time in US history. The payoff here at home may even work out better for the rest of the world that is poor. Educate here at home.