Tag: President Gates Foundation

Lauding the Indian growth story, a top leader of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on January 16 said other countries can use India’s successful digital public infrastructure model to help achieve their healthcare and other development goals.

Speaking to PTI in Davos on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting, the Foundation’s president of Global Development, Christopher J. Elias also said AI can help accelerate achieve global development targets but it must be used responsibly and with careful attention to ethics and regulations.

“In India, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has worked in a wide range of sectors and areas including health, agriculture, water and sanitation, digital public infrastructure and inclusive financial services. We will continue to work in these areas,” he added. Mr. Elias said the Foundation’s oldest field office is in India and that is more than 20 years old.

“We work very closely with the Central government and many State governments there on some of the very important issues. We work particularly closely in States of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar on maternal health and new-born child health issues, we work in Odisha on issues related to water sanitation, agriculture development and improving lifecycles related,” he added.

Mr. Elias said it is very exciting to see such a huge presence from India. He also recalled that as G20 Chair last year, India brought together the global community to understand how best to accelerate progress with sustainable development goals of the United Nations.

“That I think is going to be talked about a lot here at Davos,” he said adding, “One area of particular accomplishment in India that I think can be a good model for the world to follow is digital public infrastructure that has helped achieve a lot of progress in financial services, health etc,” Mr. Elias said.

He said things such as universal ID, universal payment interface etc have really served India very well in the last decade to accelerate progress and development.

Mr. Elias said the leaders attending the WEF meeting can discuss how that success model of India can be shared with other nations especially in Africa and Asia and if they can help them achieve their development targets as well.

Talking about opportunities and threats from artificial intelligence, Mr. Elias said AI presents a huge opportunity to accelerate global development but it needs to be done responsibly.

“It needs to be done with careful attention to ethics and regulations so that we can harness this tool of cutting edge science and technology for the best use of mankind,” he said.

Mr. Elias said AI might be of great use to help frontline healthcare workers get the most accurate information to help address community needs. “There is tremendous potential for AI but we need to use it in a responsible manner.”

‘World yet not fully prepared for future pandemics’

Praising India and other countries for contributing to a global pandemic fund, a top official of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on January 16 said the world is yet not fully prepared to deal with any future pandemic and a lot more work needs to be done.

Speaking to PTI on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, where ‘Disease X’ is one of the key areas of discussions, Dr. Christopher J. Elias said we have learnt our lessons after COVID-19 but further efforts and discussions are needed, including on financing requirements.

“A really important discussion had started nearly eight years ago after the Ebola outbreak and that discussion cake into very clear focus after COVID-19 that the world needs to be better prepared,” he said.

“The world needs to be ready for infections and diseases that we know such as influenza but also diseases that we don’t know and may be new such as Disease X. But I don’t think we are fully prepared yet,” he added.

Mr. Elias noted that there have been a lot of talks on what needs to be done for the world to be fully prepared.

The WHO is in the process of negotiating an accord, trying to bring countries together on what needs to be done and how it is going to be financed, he said.

“We had a wake-up call from COVID-19 and we are relatively better prepared than we were four years ago but we are not fully prepared. There is a lot more work to be done and there is a lot more financing that needs to be arranged and those would be a lot more discussions over the course of next one year,” he said.

Talking about financing requirements Mr. Elias said that after the COVID-19, an IMF report suggested that we might need $10 billion a year to make sure that the entire world is adequately prepared for future pandemics.

“At Indonesian G20 two years ago, a pandemic fund was created and many nations of the world including India contributed to that fund. So, that’s a start and it has raised about $2 billion so far but obviously it’s not everything that is needed,” he said.

On the new annual budget of the Foundation, Mr. Elias said they are very excited that the board of trustees of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has approved our largest budget ever of $8.6 billion for 2024.

“We think it’s really important that we are leading in helping to improve global health and development at a time when there is so much pressure on the resources around the world.

“This budget is about $1 billion higher than what was our budget in 2021. So we are increasing our budget significantly and we hope that many others also do so.

“Because this is the time when we have seen many successes in global health and a lot of opportunities are there for continued successes,” he added.

Asked about areas where these funding will go, Mr. Elias said there are many that the budget covers including finishing the job on polio eradication.

“India eradicated polio more than ten years ago but there are a few other places in the world where we have to finish the job and we are optimistic that in a year or two we will be able to eradicate polio from the world,” he said.

The foundation will also continue to work towards improving immunization and to reach those areas where people need the help the most are among our key priorities, he added.