Bill Gates: ‘World should follow the UAE example’
Microsoft founder praises efforts to reduce global health problems
Microsoft founder and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates said more countries should follow the UAE’s example in funding the battle against global health problems, even as budgets tighten.
Mr Gates last week announced a report on the state of global health and development, and said the UAE, Norway and Sweden donated more than 0.7 per cent of their gross national income to foreign aid to prevent millions of disease-related deaths.
But, he said, shifting priorities, instability and budget cuts could jeopardise progress.
“If we had a 10 per cent cut in global donor funding for HIV treatment, we would have five million more HIV-related deaths by 2030,” Mr Gates said.
“That’s to bring it in real focus that it absolutely matters what happens here.”
He said the world stepped up in the battle against Aids, halving the number of deaths since 2005.
“The commitment to get drugs cheaper and get them out to everybody has made a difference,” Mr Gates said.
“We see countries that are considering possible funding cuts so we’re talking about a big setback, especially because we have this huge increase in the number of people in the atrisk age group – 16 to 24 years old. We’re saying that progress is not inevitable – it is possible.
“There are heroes, innovations and exemplars, but the trend is that if countries do not think about these problems, you can have reversals.
The report, Goalkeepers: the Stories Behind the Data, by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, measures the progress of the UN Sustainable Development Goals in reducing extreme poverty and disease.
It analyses 18 health and poverty indicators to gauge how far the world has come and what is at stake.
The report highlights successes and innovations that are saving lives around the world, while acknowledging lessons learnt and how much work remains to be done.
“What we’re trying to do here is document the incredible progress on poverty and different disease areas, and trying to look forward and see what the possibilities to continue that progress are.”
The UN has a target for all donor countries to give at least 0.7 per cent of their gross national income in foreign aid.
“We’re hoping all developed countries will achieve that,” Mr Gates said. “A big breakthrough on aid quality was that historically it was more about relationships than it was about humanitarian impact.”
Of the more than 750 million people in the world facing extreme poverty, living on less than US$1.90 a day, about 300 million are in the Muslim world.
Mr Gates spoke of the vital work performed by the UAE, with Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, personally contributing $120 million (Dh441m) in 2013 towards the eradication of polio. He donated another $30m in June this year, for a total of $167m so far.
“The UAE’s interesting because they’ve been quite generous on a number of things for many years, but it’s in the past few years in terms of how they organise and report about it that people were able to see that overall picture added up, and see it is at quite a generous level,” Mr Gates said.
“The UAE did excellent work in the top parts of Pakistan, not just in resources but in the execution on the ground by giving vaccines to all children, and this will make a difference in whether we achieve our eradication goals or not.
“We hope the generosity and the partnership and that transparency gets adopted more widely.”
Polio cases dropped from 350,000 in 1988 to 74 last year.
Extreme poverty and child deaths were also cut in half and HIV and maternal deaths were reduced by almost half.
“Innovation is why the world is so much better today than it was 200 years ago,” Mr Gates said. “Innovation has made a huge difference and artificial intelligence has been applied to drug discovery, to find out how to better educate and to find patterns in data.
“It can be a very positive thing because disease eradication has such a huge and powerful benefit.”
Dr Mansour Al Zarouni, infectious control expert at the Ministry of Health and Al Qassimi Hospital in Sharjah, echoed those sentiments.
“Most of these diseases are preventable because vaccines are available,” Dr Al Zarouni said.
“What is basically required is funding for vaccines and reaching populations.
“Not being able to reach the population due to wars or countries’ internal affairs is what is allowing these diseases to come back.”
He said the issue was not so much the cost of vaccines, but rather being able to get them to those who need them most.
“Innovation is great because now more and more people work towards recombinant vaccines.
“These are critical, because they are genetically engineered to give protection against multiple diseases in one vaccine,” Dr Al Zarouni said.
“Due to the difficult in reaching some populations, you don’t have the chance to go back for different vaccinations, so the vaccines are combined.
“What is required is that innovation, technology and money is directed towards recombinant vaccines.”