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 100^th 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.