The Founder of Microsoft Corporation, Mr. Bill Gates, has pledged to devote his wealth to addressing challenges in Africa for the next 20 years.
Gates made this pledge on Monday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, when he reviewed the impacts of Gates Foundations’ philanthropic endavours in Africa.
He said: “My commitment is to be a partner. I recently made a commitment that I will be giving away my wealth for the next 20 years.
“But one thing that I have not said publicly before is that majority of the funding will be spent on helping you address challenges here in Africa.
“That is how I intend to focus all my work for the rest of my life. There is nothing more important.”
Gates traced his relationship with Africa to 1993 when he visited the continent and in 1997 when he was told about children dying of diarrhoea in Africa and his mother reminding him that to whom much is given much is expected.
“So, child survival and child thriving became the primary focus of the Gates Foundation.
“It is incredibly unjust that children born in Africa have 50 times the chance of dying before age five than children born in other continents.
“So from its very beginning, starting from 2000, the foundation and its partners set our primary focus in Africa on health, agriculture and education,” he said.
His collaboration with the GAVI brought the price of vaccines for diarrheoa from $30 to below $2, which reduced deaths caused by the disease from 10 million to five million within 25 years, which represented the “most reduction of deaths in any period in history.”
The foundation also made significant contribution in the reduction of the spread of HIV in Africa. However, this success could not be replicated in efforts to combat malaria.
But Gates expressed optimism that malaria would be defeated in Africa because more tools are in the pipeline to kill mosquitoes and render them incapable of carrying malaria parasite.
“With partners in Africa, we are preparing to showcase those tools and get them ready for roll out. I believe that there is real possibility over the next 20 years to completely eradicate malaria. That will be a huge achievement,” he said.
He acknowledged the roles of Alhaji Aliko Dangote and the current Minister of Health, Dr. Muhammad Pate, in eradicating of polio in Nigeria.
“Polio looked very difficult to get out in Nigeria. And it is only through great leadership with people like Dr. Mohammed Pate, who is now the minister of health, that this became successful.
“I partnered with generous leaders like Aliko Dangote to work with traditional and religious leaders throughout the country, but particularly in the north, to get the words out about the importance of polio vaccines.
“The main type of polio was completely eliminated all over Africa in 2016, including in Nigeria where it looked like we might not succeed,” Gates said.
Gates said that the foundation’s goal in agriculture is to help Africa go from “being a net food importer to a significant food exporter even in the face of population growth and climate change,”
