The slogan for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is 'all lives have equal value' and its over $33 billion endowment fund focuses on global health and development programs including immunization, HIV research, vaccines, and agriculture.
A feature in the Guardian looks at the large Foundation begun in 1994 and its work and influence. It refers to an editorial from the revered medical journal the Lancet. The Foundation is praised for giving "a massive boost to global health funding . . . The Foundation has challenged the world to think big and to be more ambitious about what can be done to save lives in low-income settings. The Foundation has added renewed dynamism, credibility, and attractiveness to global health [as a cause]."
For example, one area of dramatic involvement is immunization.. It funds heavily, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (Gavi) and the Global Fund to Fight HIV/Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which, according to the foundation, delivered vaccines to more than 250 million children in poor countries and prevented more than an estimated five million deaths.
"The foundation has brought a new vigour," says Michael Edwards, a veteran charity commentator and usually a critic of billionaire philanthropists. "The charity sector can almost disempower itself; be too gloomy about things . . . Gates offers more of a positive story. He is a role model for other philanthropists, and he is the biggest."
"Everyone follows the Gates foundation's lead," says someone at a longer-established charity who prefers not to be named. "It feels like they're everywhere. Every conference I go to, they're there. Every study that comes out, they're part of. They have the ear of any [national] leadership they want to speak to. Politicians attach themselves to Gates to get PR. Everyone loves to have a meeting with Gates. No institution would refuse."
The foundation has branch offices in Washington DC, Delhi and Beijing with their headquarters in a nondescript building in Seattle.Some critics in the article question if bigger is better when it comes to global philanthropy but few can fault the organization for the meaningful synergies created.
One of the quotes at the visitor centre is from the famous American anthropologist Margaret Mead: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed individuals can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."
