Speaking ahead of the Abu Dhabi Media Summit, the Microsoft founder, who has one of the world’s largest private fortunes, identified polio eradication as his “highest priority” under the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s objective to reduce childhood death rates through disease prevention and improved nutrition.
Gates believes that worldwide cases of polio, currently numbering in the thousands, can be brought to zero in the next three years and certifiably so, three years after that.
“The polio campaign is a great example of partnerships in this region that are very key to us,” he said. “The Crown Prince [of Abu Dhabi] made a commitment to partner with us on polio and he actually had a team of doctors go into Pakistan to some of the hard-to-reach areas and vaccinate a number of children, which was a great help.” Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria are the three remaining nations where polio exists.
Gates, who came to the UAE to meet with local donors and philanthropists as well as to attend the summit, on Tuesday signed a memorandum of understanding with UAE remittance and foreign exchange company Al Ansari Exchange, pledging $ 10 million towards polio eradication and neglected tropical diseases prevention. Both the Gates Foundation and Al Ansari Exchange have committed to donating $ 5 million each.
“Getting donors from this region really points out to everyone that this is for all the children of the world,” said Gates, who observed that the three polio-infected countries are Muslim. “Having the right credibility that the vaccination is a good thing is super important; access is the one thing that’s still a concern for us in all of these difficult areas.”
In his keynote speech at the summit, Gates said he will focus on charity rather than running for US presidency. “I wouldn’t ever choose to run for political office,” said Gates at the annual Abu Dhabi Media Summit held in the Emirati capital.
By running the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, “I don’t have to raise political campaigns, I don’t have to get elected … I’m not term limited to eight years,” said the US billionaire, but added that he would give “advice” to the president just as he gave to Microsoft.
