We all know that Bill Gates has more money than God and Oprah put together, but it seems he tries to use at least part of it for good. Gates’ wife, Melinda announced this week that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is donating $1.5 billion to programs in developing countries to promote maternal and child health, including nutrition, vaccination, and family planning.
In an interview with NPR’s Michele Norris, Melinda said, “We said AIDS is important, we said malaria is important, we’re saying now maternal and child deaths are important — and guess what? It’s actually possible to fix them.”
But, they are not hoping to do it alone. Gates is hoping the countries of the world will also get involved through the United Nations. Later this month, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will meet with others in Toronto in hopes of raising an additional $15 billion for the programs. Ban said, “The women and children are always last in line for health issues. It’s just morally unacceptable…This is a human rights issue.”
Governments of the developing countries that will benefit from these programs are expected to donate 15 percent of their national budgets to the cause as well. Gates pointed out that “it is going to take large-scale government funding to make it work.”
Ethiopia, perhaps one of the hardest hit countries, has stepped up already. The government has opened 15,000 clinics and hired 30,000 visiting health workers. For its effort, Gates has provided $60 million in grants to Ethiopia.
Are these programs really going to help? Christopher Murray of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation thinks developing countries are already headed in the right direction. He pointed out that mortality for women in or around childbirth has dropped 35 percent worldwide. The institute also found that mortality among children under the age of 5 worldwide fell from 11.9 million in 1990 to 7.7 million in 2010.
Still, statistics show that 99 percent of the almost 350,000 maternal deaths worldwide happen in developing countries, so there is still much work to be done.