Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: Annual Letter

          While searching for a topic to write about in my first post, I turned to the major news sources in search of an interesting story.  The first thing that stood out to me was the major emphasis on negative events and news happenings around the world, leaving the positive events to be quietly forgotten about.  When I finally discovered a story that focused on positive global change I was instantly intrigued. When I came across this story, I was aware but not informed regarding the global impact of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.  Bill and Melinda Gates started their foundation in 2000 with the idea that by backing innovative work in health and education, they could help billions of people improve their lives.  Their $40 billion philanthropic organization's most impressive accomplishment to date has been the eradication of polio in India.  Just 30 years ago an average of 150,000 people died annually from polio in India, but in the past 3 years not one child has contracted polio.  Building off this achievement, Bill and Melinda strive to eliminate polio from the world all together.

          Today, Bill and Melinda released their annual letter on the state of foreign aid.  They devoted their letter to busting the 3 major myths about poverty and by outlining the positive changes they expect to see in the world within the next 15 years.  In the letter Bill and Melinda state that "The lives of people in poor countries will improve faster in the next 15 years than at any other time in history.  We're putting our credibility, time and money behind this because we think there has never been a better time to accelerate progress and have a big impact around the world."  Following this bold statement, they listed four major breakthroughs that they see coming by 2030.

• First, child deaths will go down by half.  In 1990, one in 10 children in the world died before age 5.  Today, its one in 20.  By 2030, it will be one in 40.  Almost all countries will include vaccines for diarrhea and pneumonia, two of the biggest killers of children, in their immunization programs. Better sanitation will cut the spread of disease dramatically. And we're learning how to help more mothers adopt practices such as proper breastfeeding and skin-to-skin contact with their babies that prevent newborns from dying in the first month after they're born.
• Second, Africa will be able to feed itself. Today, the continent has to rely on imports and food aid to feed its people, even though seven out of 10 people in sub-Saharan Africa are farmers. Part of the problem is that African farmers get just a fraction of the yields that American farmers get.  In the next 15 years, however, innovations in farming will erase these brutal ironies. With better fertilizer and hardier crops, African farmers will be able to grow a greater variety of food and sell their surpluses to supplement their family's diet with vegetables, eggs, milk, and meat.  Even as climate change makes farmers' job more difficult, we can get them enough innovation and information to increase productivity by 50% for the continent overall. Countries like Ghana are also building better roads and adopting policies that make it easier to move food to the places where it's most needed. In 15 years, Africa will still import food when it makes sense to do so, but it will also export much more, eventually achieving a net positive trade balance.
• Third, mobile banking will help the poor radically transform their lives. Today, some 2.5 billion people don't have access to cheap and easy financial services -- a problem that makes it much more difficult to be poor. If your savings is in the form of jewellery or livestock, for example, you can't very well chip off tiny pieces to cover routine daily expenses.  But in the next 15 years, digital banking will give the poor more control over their assets. The key will be mobile phones. Already, in developing countries with the right regulatory framework -- such as Bangladesh -- people are using their phones to store money digitally and make purchases. By 2030, 8% of the adults without bank accounts today will be doing the same.  And by then, mobile money providers will be offering the full range of financial services, from interest-bearing savings accounts to credit to insurance.
• Fourth, as high-speed cell networks grow and smartphones become as cheap as today's voice-only phones, online education will flourish. Before a child even starts primary school, she will be able to use her mom's smartphone to learn her numbers and letters. Software will be able to see when she's having trouble with the material and adjust for her pace. Of course, software will never replace teachers. But by allowing teachers to do things like upload videos of themselves and get feedback from their peers, it can connect them in new ways. 

Child Deaths from these leading infectious diseases have declined since
the creation of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000.

          Though these breakthroughs seen to be a large stretch from where the global community currently stands today, the continued effort from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as well as public support and action can turn these goals into reality.  Through this process, the Foundation is currently aiming to recruit millions of new advocates in order to urge world leaders to be ambitious when they meet in September to develop a new set of goals and guidelines that will guide the world's efforts to tackle disease, poverty and climate change over the next 15 years.  The Foundation fully believes that through the combined efforts of informed and passionate people the world will become a more equatable place.  

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Bill & Melinda Gates: Our Bet for 2030
2015 Gates Annual Letter