Bill Gates Sr. Address
Rotary Presidents Conference
January 29, 2003
Good Afternoon,
I know I'm not the
first to say, "Welcome to Seattle."
I've visited a fair
number of Rotary meetings over the years. You see when I was in college I was a
student member of Rotary. Then, during my law career I was often a guest at
Seattle Rotary Four Club meetings.
Of course, in those
days when I was a lawyer raising a young family I never dreamed that I'd come
back to Rotary someday representing a "Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation." No, I
never imagined that the frequently argumentative little boy I faced each night
at dinner the one eating my food and using my name was to be my future employer.
Interestingly enough
it's been since we started the foundation, that I've come to fully appreciate
Rotary. As you've heard, one our foundation's goals is
improving the health of the world's poorest people. I and others involved in
global health, spend a lot of time these days singing Rotary's praises.
Last May, I went back
to Washington D.C. to speak to a group that included leaders from our
government, representatives from foreign countries and specialists in the field
of global health. It was an audience that personified the notion of a world
community, one drawn together by a single idea - the idea of improving the
health of the world's people.
And in that room filled
with so much symbolism, I had the pleasure of presenting the Gates Award for
Global Healthy to the Chairman of the Rotary Foundation. We give this award to
recognize organizations that are making major and lasting contributions to the
field of global health. The award recipient is actually selected by the board of
the Global Health Council
In selecting you, the
council salutes the Rotary Foundation, Rotary International and Rotary
members, everywhere for the leadership you've
demonstrated in the field of public health, most notably your efforts to
eradicate Polio. Thanks to you, global health experts say that in 2002, we
reached the lowest number of polio endemic countries ever.
As you likely know, 90%
of the world's polio now is found in only 9 states or provinces within the
countries of India, Nigeria and Pakistan. Those three countries combined have a
total of 76 provinces. So you can see we're talking about a very small area.
You've got polio cornered.
Experts believe that by
2005 when you celebrate your 100th anniversary every region of the
world will be certified polio free, or in the process of certification. Of
course, you've done a lot more than bring us to the brink of defeating Polio or
Malaria or any of the other problems Rotary clubs have addressed. You've set a
whole new standard for what people believe a volunteer organization can
accomplish.
Back when Rotary became
involved with polio, most people thought volunteer organizations were about
tackling projects down the street, or across town, not across the world and
certainly nothing so monumental as a 20-year global
campaign to rid the world of Polio.
Rotary changed all
that and in the process you reminded us that there is no human problem so
daunting that people can't overcome it. You created a model for what
private/public partnerships can achieve and how they best function. And that's
especially important in global health because no one can accomplish such
audacious goals
as
ridding the world of polio or stopping the transmission of AIDS alone. No matter
how great your resources are they're never great enough.
That's why our
foundation works with partners like Rotary. The reason we work with you in
particular is that your reputation preceded you. Others who have been your
partners-such as The World Health Organization, UNICEF and the Center for
Disease Control have told us Rotary is the ideal
partner. They say Rotary's diligence, professionalism and businesslike approach
revolutionized their thinking about volunteer partners. And they credit you with
all kinds of "firsts". They say Rotary lifted our sights in terms of how much
money a volunteer organization can raise. (You raised almost $500 million
dollars from your own members.)
They
say you set a new standard for what volunteers could do to attract funds from
Governments and get heads of state engaged in the cause of global health. In
fact, you've proven how much can be accomplished when a group selflessly uses
every ounce of the political capital it has to help the world's most
disenfranchised children.
You've moved us to a
point where we can now hold the governments of the world accountable for the
health of their people. In fact when polio cases shot up in India this year, you
used that disappointment to dramatize a point you've always made - that being,
that when a government backs away from a problem, progress suffers.
In addition to all
that, Rotary taught the global health community how to mobilize people. Rotary
contributed innovations such as the Interagency Coordinating Committee -a
mechanism that helps us assess how much funding will be needed to immunize kids
in a given country-and multi-year planning processes that the vaccination
efforts supported by our foundation, rely on today.
And when our foundation
set forth a challenge grant offering an additional $25 million dollars to help
the polio effort contingent upon somebody else matching it, Rotary was the first
and only group to commit to go after the funds to provide that match. The $80
million dollars you've committed to raise will go a long way toward closing the
funding gap we need to address to eradicate Polio once and for all.
You've stayed the
course for more than 20 years. You are viewed as the "conscience"
behind
the polio initiative. And you did something else; you showed us how to be part
of a world community. A couple of months ago, when I spoke at the University
Rotary Club, a number of members were absent. They were in Ethiopia vaccinating
children against Polio. Fifteen years ago it was nearly impossible to get an
American civic group steamed up about getting involved with something happening
in Ethiopia. So, to me the action of those Rotarians suggests that a
transformation is taking place. A transformation in who we think our neighbors
are.
You were leaders in
that transformation. And just think of the critical role your example has to
play today. It seems to me that anyone who thinks much about our country's
standing in the world at large would concede that one of the problems we have
has to do with the face we present to the rest of the world. I believe we need
to do more to express the generous spirit of this country by demonstrating our
concern for human life everywhere. We have a lot to learn from Rotary, as a
nation.
The Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation has already learned a great deal
from you.In fact, we're attempting to do things very similar in nature to what
you've done with Polio. We're trying to make people aware of the human suffering
caused by problems either never known or long ago forgotten in this country. And
we hope to help solve those problems by using tools available now and by
supporting the creation of new technologies and organizational models.
We learned from you
about the power of collaboration. In fact we patterned the alliance we're using
to provide basic vaccinations to the world's children after your Polio
Eradication Initiative. And now, we're attempting to bring to the problem of
AIDS the same sense of solvability you brought to world of polio.
Our number one global
health objective is to stop the transmission of AIDS in developing countries.
Last March my wife and I took a trip to Africa with former President Jimmy
Carter and his wife Roselyn. On that trip we met with African leaders. One of
our intents was to get African leaders talking about HIV/AIDS and interacting
with those afflicted by it. We wanted to help reduce the stigma associated with
AIDS, which is a barrier to solving the problem. We saw many signs during our
visit to Africa that the problem of AIDS is solvable.
I've brought just two
pictures with me today to portray just one of those signs.
Do you remember that
Tom Selleck movie "Three men and a Baby"? Well this
is three men and three babies. In South Africa, President Carter and Nelson
Mandela and I had the opportunity to visit a place called the Zola Clinic. There
we held infants whose mothers are HIV positive and have been treated with a drug
called Nevirapine. Thanks to $4 dollars worth of
Nevirapine, I knew that this little guy was healthy
and not infected with HIV.
Besides
Nevirapine-the one thing that separated this baby from the infants I saw
in Africa dying of AIDS was his mother's courage. She braved the pain of
discrimination and came forward to be tested for AIDS in the hope of saving his
life.
Some solutions for the problem
of AIDS involve new technologies. We think the best hope is an AIDS vaccine and
we're working on that. But a number of developing countries have already turned
their AIDS problem around through the use of education
and
things as simple as condoms.
I want all of you to know that
our foundation learned from you, that it's possible to defeat the most
overwhelming problems if you're prepared to bring the best minds to the task and
stay with what you're doing long enough. That's something for you to keep in
mind in leading your Rotary Clubs.
You have from Polio and your
own history marvelous lessons to draw upon. From Polio, you've learned that if
there is a problem that's big enough and serious enough, even if it's million
miles away, you can inspire your members to want to solve it. You learned that
you could raise unheard of amounts of money to solve such a problem and get
whole countries to follow your lead. You demonstrated you could get behind a
cause with no local appeal whatsoever and endure controversy and overcome
apathy. I believe the courage and heart and talent it took to do all that
surely permeates your ranks.
If that weren't true we
wouldn't be meeting here, today in a building, largely built through the efforts
of Rotary.
I know those of you who are
Presidents-Elect, are just beginning a period of time consuming preparation.
Then in July you assume a daunting responsibility. In the course of all that
any reasonable person might wonder from time to time:
"Can I really succeed?
And is it worth it?"
When our foundation decided to
try to improve the health of the world's poorest people I asked myself similar
questions. I found my answer in the example of people I've met all around the
world who are doing extraordinary things in service of humanity.
One example is the young
Harvard educated Doctor who took his high priced medical degree to the remote
reaches of Africa to set up a clinic.
Another example is the Indian executive who gave up a
big job with McKenzie and Company and a salary that was seven times what he's
making now to work for us on AIDS in
India.
When his wife asked him why he
wanted to make such a change he said: "Because
I may be able to save 20 million lives." And she said " O.K.
"
Then, there is the Seattle
Rotarian who described vaccinating kids for Polio in Ethiopia in these words.
He said "I look down at the child, smile as big as I can, lift up his or her
chin, make sure the mouth is open wide and squirt in two drops of oral vaccine.
The child often does not like the taste, squirms a bit and we reopen the baby's
mouth and squirt in vitamins."
That's it, except for one
other thing. As the mom moves away, she invariably looks in my eyes and says,
"'Thank you for protecting my baby. " The words are seldom expressed, verbally,
but the message is always communicated. There aren't just a few people out
there serving others in ways like these.
There are legions of them. And
they and the indisputable ways in which I see them moving the world forward are
the best answers I know of to such questions as: "Can we succeed?" And,
" Is it worth it."
I know not everyone has had
the opportunity I've had to learn what a savvy, courageous powerhouse of an
organization Rotary is, but you know it. As you face into the adventure and
challenge of the coming year, that knowledge ought to drive your thoughts and
aspirations toward even higher ground.
Thank you.
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