The former head of Microsoft became a full-time philanthropist. It will be in France on 4 and 5 April to highlight the achievements of his private foundation to development aid, with 34 billion dollars.
Le Figaro Magazine - What is the purpose of the communication campaign that you are about to lead France?
Bill Gates - European countries, including France, have always been very generous to poor countries. My goal with this campaign * is to show them, by drawing on examples and real numbers, that their money is not captured by dictators or hijacked by corrupt and many people continue to believe, but it actually serves to distribute vaccines and medicines to save lives, to help farmers produce more, to ensure that these countries become self-sufficient. I went to London last October and I will travel to Paris on April 4 to show the "living proof" of this success, and remember that people in poor countries continue to need our help.
Is this also because you're worried about the decline of aid paid by France?
France is really generous. More than the U.S. percentage of GDP, even if the United States give more volume. But it is true that France has not increased its participation in years when it was committed - and also that Germany and the UK - to increase the amount of development assistance 0.4% of GDP to 0.7%, which makes a huge difference! He must now decide whether to keep this commitment among all its other budget choices to save the poorest. I am very hopeful it will. And that is why I developed the "Living Proof project" (project living proof) as I will present it orally to politicians and opinion leaders, but also on the web at a much more wide, because I am convinced that French public opinion can weigh, too, that the decision will take leadership.
Do you know that in France there is a fairly strong opposition against GMOs? And what are your arguments if you are on those calls that you funded?
I am aware, yes. The French have the chance to decide exactly what they want to eat, but some people do not have that choice. We do have financed a flood-resistant rice, rice through which we can save the poor, and that, save the lives of the poorest, it should not be challenged! If science invents a cereal that can not only feed people but also to let them earn some money so they can send their children to school - which is an enormous human benefit against the risk incurred, guarded by scientific studies - then it's not for us to decide if the countries concerned have the right, or not to offer their people. Each case, whether wheat, rice or sorghum, must be studied individually, but the decision belongs only to those countries, and to them alone.
The majority of the actions of your foundation aimed at improving health. Can you explain this choice?
The foundation works in three main areas: health, development and education. If health is indeed one on which we invest the most, because we have come to understand that she was the key to a controlled development. Initially, we were focused on contraception and family planning, but it was very expensive and not very effective. Then we realized, much to our surprise, by improving health, we got basically three types of results. This reduces the death, of course. This prevents the disease and its side effects, such as physical or mental disabilities, which are very common in Africa because of malnutrition or malaria. But - and this is the ultimate benefit, unexpected - shows that parents stop making a multitude of children in the hope that some survive. In total, therefore prevents the unbridled growth of world population and problems - hunger, illiteracy, underemployment, environmental damage ... - Ensuing.
For over ten years since your foundation is, what is your greatest achievement?
Vaccines. In terms of human performance per dollar paid, I know nothing more effective than vaccines. Since the creation of the GAVI (Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, established in 2000 through a donation of $ 750 million from the Gates Foundation, ed), vaccines have saved 5 million lives. Polio, which killed or crippled 350,000 children each year still twenty years ago, is virtually eradicated in 99%. Deaths from measles in Africa have decreased by 98%. And that's really great. That's what we do.
What is your main objective today?
Our greatest hope - and our most risky investment - is the development of a vaccine against malaria. We are already against him with material resources, such as mosquito bed nets and insecticides, but the ideal would be to achieve a vaccine is both effective and inexpensive. Why we are funding several research teams, which at least came in the final phase of its tests. But this is not yet won, nor immediately.
With the departure of 17milliards dollars - and twice today - your foundation is always the biggest and the only one to have been created during his lifetime, a donor so young?
Compared to other foundations, ours is quite large, indeed. But compared to what gives the States, it is very small. And compared to the immensity of the problems on which we work, it is tiny. As for the age I was when I started giving her youth is very relative, too. I started about 40 years and I work full time for the foundation since I was 53 years. While Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder, was only 26 years old when he donated $ 100 million last year, is much younger than me! I also believe that what matters most is not the size of donation - many people bequeath their wealth as an inheritance to charity - or the age at which it does, but the degree of personal commitment donors. It's good to give, but what I find unfortunate is that those who can not undertake to do no more. There is urgency.
It's been almost three years you focus on your foundation. Technology does not interest you?
I continue to interest me enormously in my work to the foundation. When you fund research on vaccines, or when to find a way to keep them cold to the place of inoculation, the science involved all the time, and I like it very much. I also learn a lot in immunology and biology. And experience with Microsoft serves me constantly, particularly as regards meetings, travel, partnerships ... not to mention the wait - which sometimes lasts ten years! - Before a search successfully.
Your teams have a reputation of being more effective than those of many NGOs. Does it come as very "entrepreneur", you refer them?
Many NGOs are doing a great job and we work also frequently with seven or eight of them on the ground. It is also possible that my reputation for efficiency, which was acquired by Microsoft, serve me: I am given credit, it does not work maybe not for me quite how it would work for another. But we are not always effective, we may abandon some projects, either because they do not work, either because they would not be able to keep going without us. I think the big difference with other charities is that we consider efficiency as essential: a project must not only work but make more profit (the word is not used here in the sense money, but the benefit of humanity, ie) it costs, and continue to make if we stop funding it. Efficiency is the key. I also add that we have an extraordinary team, despite the fact that we do not pay high salaries, and no stock options either. But the mission is exciting and that's probably what attracts us so many wonderful people, including financial experts.
Where are you from your "Operation Giving Pledge" ("Pledge"), launched last summer with Warren Buffett to urge the billionaires to bequeath at least half of their fortune to charity? And this call he heard in Europe?
Our group has now officially very, sixty members. Not all Americans, but all based in the United States, probably because this country is home to the largest fortunes and those who possess them have been very fortunate to be rich enough to give much. They know they are dating, they encourage each other to give. And even if I would - of course - delighted that others join us, I consider that the "Giving Pledge" is already an incredible success. It's much more than I expected.
The generous American billionaires she explained in part by a different relationship with inheritance?
Leaving too much money to his own children is not a good thing ... whatever the country! Mine (William and Melinda Gates, married since 1994, have three children, ages 15, 12 and 9, note) have always known that I did not intend to bequeath them a huge fortune and that they would have work a little bit more than if they were merely princes and princesses. I find it perfectly normal and healthy to raise them like that.
You advocate a form of "creative capitalism." What do you mean by that?
I'll give you a concrete example, that of a French company Sanofi-Aventis. They are very generous. They lend us their research and skills to make them serve the poorest, to produce a vaccine against polio at the lowest price, without any hope that this increases their profits. But for them it is not sunk: they increase their know-how they motivate their employees, they are increasing their presence on the world market, they prepare the ground for new partnerships, they value their image.
Natural disasters, financial crisis, layoffs, environmental concerns, armed conflict: and you continue to say "optimistic"?
Of course! All the dramas that occur should not obscure the fact that, fundamentally and dramatically, the living conditions of the world population continue to improve.
Even in Africa?
Absolutely: there are things improved massively. Whether infant mortality, nutrition, literacy and education. Some countries like Nigeria, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Kenya have progressed very important. And others, who were still largely assisted forty years ago, are now donors! But the human condition did not obviously improved in all countries as in France or the United States, which is why we must continue to help them: to become, in turn, self-sufficient.
* Presentation of "Project Living Proof" will be held on the evening of April 4, the Musée Dapper, Paris XVI, in front of 400 guests. Bill Gates will speak on the same day on TF1 and RTL before flying to Strasbourg and Berlin.
From April 5, the video of his presentation will be visible on http://one.org/international/livingproof, accompanied by film and comprehensive records on the many actions funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Le Figaro Magazine - What is the purpose of the communication campaign that you are about to lead France?
Bill Gates - European countries, including France, have always been very generous to poor countries. My goal with this campaign * is to show them, by drawing on examples and real numbers, that their money is not captured by dictators or hijacked by corrupt and many people continue to believe, but it actually serves to distribute vaccines and medicines to save lives, to help farmers produce more, to ensure that these countries become self-sufficient. I went to London last October and I will travel to Paris on April 4 to show the "living proof" of this success, and remember that people in poor countries continue to need our help.
Is this also because you're worried about the decline of aid paid by France?
France is really generous. More than the U.S. percentage of GDP, even if the United States give more volume. But it is true that France has not increased its participation in years when it was committed - and also that Germany and the UK - to increase the amount of development assistance 0.4% of GDP to 0.7%, which makes a huge difference! He must now decide whether to keep this commitment among all its other budget choices to save the poorest. I am very hopeful it will. And that is why I developed the "Living Proof project" (project living proof) as I will present it orally to politicians and opinion leaders, but also on the web at a much more wide, because I am convinced that French public opinion can weigh, too, that the decision will take leadership.
Do you know that in France there is a fairly strong opposition against GMOs? And what are your arguments if you are on those calls that you funded?
I am aware, yes. The French have the chance to decide exactly what they want to eat, but some people do not have that choice. We do have financed a flood-resistant rice, rice through which we can save the poor, and that, save the lives of the poorest, it should not be challenged! If science invents a cereal that can not only feed people but also to let them earn some money so they can send their children to school - which is an enormous human benefit against the risk incurred, guarded by scientific studies - then it's not for us to decide if the countries concerned have the right, or not to offer their people. Each case, whether wheat, rice or sorghum, must be studied individually, but the decision belongs only to those countries, and to them alone.
The majority of the actions of your foundation aimed at improving health. Can you explain this choice?
The foundation works in three main areas: health, development and education. If health is indeed one on which we invest the most, because we have come to understand that she was the key to a controlled development. Initially, we were focused on contraception and family planning, but it was very expensive and not very effective. Then we realized, much to our surprise, by improving health, we got basically three types of results. This reduces the death, of course. This prevents the disease and its side effects, such as physical or mental disabilities, which are very common in Africa because of malnutrition or malaria. But - and this is the ultimate benefit, unexpected - shows that parents stop making a multitude of children in the hope that some survive. In total, therefore prevents the unbridled growth of world population and problems - hunger, illiteracy, underemployment, environmental damage ... - Ensuing.
For over ten years since your foundation is, what is your greatest achievement?
Vaccines. In terms of human performance per dollar paid, I know nothing more effective than vaccines. Since the creation of the GAVI (Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, established in 2000 through a donation of $ 750 million from the Gates Foundation, ed), vaccines have saved 5 million lives. Polio, which killed or crippled 350,000 children each year still twenty years ago, is virtually eradicated in 99%. Deaths from measles in Africa have decreased by 98%. And that's really great. That's what we do.
What is your main objective today?
Our greatest hope - and our most risky investment - is the development of a vaccine against malaria. We are already against him with material resources, such as mosquito bed nets and insecticides, but the ideal would be to achieve a vaccine is both effective and inexpensive. Why we are funding several research teams, which at least came in the final phase of its tests. But this is not yet won, nor immediately.
With the departure of 17milliards dollars - and twice today - your foundation is always the biggest and the only one to have been created during his lifetime, a donor so young?
Compared to other foundations, ours is quite large, indeed. But compared to what gives the States, it is very small. And compared to the immensity of the problems on which we work, it is tiny. As for the age I was when I started giving her youth is very relative, too. I started about 40 years and I work full time for the foundation since I was 53 years. While Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder, was only 26 years old when he donated $ 100 million last year, is much younger than me! I also believe that what matters most is not the size of donation - many people bequeath their wealth as an inheritance to charity - or the age at which it does, but the degree of personal commitment donors. It's good to give, but what I find unfortunate is that those who can not undertake to do no more. There is urgency.
It's been almost three years you focus on your foundation. Technology does not interest you?
I continue to interest me enormously in my work to the foundation. When you fund research on vaccines, or when to find a way to keep them cold to the place of inoculation, the science involved all the time, and I like it very much. I also learn a lot in immunology and biology. And experience with Microsoft serves me constantly, particularly as regards meetings, travel, partnerships ... not to mention the wait - which sometimes lasts ten years! - Before a search successfully.
Your teams have a reputation of being more effective than those of many NGOs. Does it come as very "entrepreneur", you refer them?
Many NGOs are doing a great job and we work also frequently with seven or eight of them on the ground. It is also possible that my reputation for efficiency, which was acquired by Microsoft, serve me: I am given credit, it does not work maybe not for me quite how it would work for another. But we are not always effective, we may abandon some projects, either because they do not work, either because they would not be able to keep going without us. I think the big difference with other charities is that we consider efficiency as essential: a project must not only work but make more profit (the word is not used here in the sense money, but the benefit of humanity, ie) it costs, and continue to make if we stop funding it. Efficiency is the key. I also add that we have an extraordinary team, despite the fact that we do not pay high salaries, and no stock options either. But the mission is exciting and that's probably what attracts us so many wonderful people, including financial experts.
Where are you from your "Operation Giving Pledge" ("Pledge"), launched last summer with Warren Buffett to urge the billionaires to bequeath at least half of their fortune to charity? And this call he heard in Europe?
Our group has now officially very, sixty members. Not all Americans, but all based in the United States, probably because this country is home to the largest fortunes and those who possess them have been very fortunate to be rich enough to give much. They know they are dating, they encourage each other to give. And even if I would - of course - delighted that others join us, I consider that the "Giving Pledge" is already an incredible success. It's much more than I expected.
The generous American billionaires she explained in part by a different relationship with inheritance?
Leaving too much money to his own children is not a good thing ... whatever the country! Mine (William and Melinda Gates, married since 1994, have three children, ages 15, 12 and 9, note) have always known that I did not intend to bequeath them a huge fortune and that they would have work a little bit more than if they were merely princes and princesses. I find it perfectly normal and healthy to raise them like that.
You advocate a form of "creative capitalism." What do you mean by that?
I'll give you a concrete example, that of a French company Sanofi-Aventis. They are very generous. They lend us their research and skills to make them serve the poorest, to produce a vaccine against polio at the lowest price, without any hope that this increases their profits. But for them it is not sunk: they increase their know-how they motivate their employees, they are increasing their presence on the world market, they prepare the ground for new partnerships, they value their image.
Natural disasters, financial crisis, layoffs, environmental concerns, armed conflict: and you continue to say "optimistic"?
Of course! All the dramas that occur should not obscure the fact that, fundamentally and dramatically, the living conditions of the world population continue to improve.
Even in Africa?
Absolutely: there are things improved massively. Whether infant mortality, nutrition, literacy and education. Some countries like Nigeria, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Kenya have progressed very important. And others, who were still largely assisted forty years ago, are now donors! But the human condition did not obviously improved in all countries as in France or the United States, which is why we must continue to help them: to become, in turn, self-sufficient.
* Presentation of "Project Living Proof" will be held on the evening of April 4, the Musée Dapper, Paris XVI, in front of 400 guests. Bill Gates will speak on the same day on TF1 and RTL before flying to Strasbourg and Berlin.
From April 5, the video of his presentation will be visible on http://one.org/international/livingproof, accompanied by film and comprehensive records on the many actions funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
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