Bill Gates Makes His Pitch
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 24 January 2019
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The mega-philanthropist is in Davos lobbying governments and the global business elite to donate money towards the fight against infectious diseases. But is the world's second richest man the best person to spearhead this effort?
Ed Butler speaks to Mr Gates about why he considers it critical that the US and other rich world governments continue to finance efforts to fight Aids, malaria, polio, TB and the like. Meanwhile, Peter Sands - executive director of the Global Fund, one of the four major health initiatives that Gates is backing - explains why any let-up in the fight could be very costly indeed, particularly for the developing world.
But the philanthro-capitalism embodied by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation faces increasing criticism. Sophie Harman, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, expresses her qualms about their lack of accountability, while historian Benjamin Soskis of the Urban Institute in the US says the very willingness of Gates to lobby for good causes is raising questions about why wealthy individuals should wield such influence over public policy.
Producer: Laurence Knight
(Picture: Bill Gates; Credit: Alessandro Di Ciommo/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Ed Butler and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:05.4 | Coming up, the world's best-known philanthropist Bill Gates tells us why it's time to dig deep |
| 0:11.0 | to fight big killer infections. |
| 0:13.6 | You have an infectious disease, you're doing a great job holding it in check. |
| 0:18.0 | When you take away those resources without warning, then the deaths will be |
| 0:22.8 | really dramatic. A powerful message, perhaps, but is the world's second richest man the right |
| 0:29.1 | one to deliver it? Whenever a major philanthropic gift is announced these days, almost inevitably |
| 0:34.1 | now you have voices expressing concern about what that concentrated power, even exercised for good, represents. |
| 0:41.7 | That's all coming up in Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:46.5 | And Bill Gates. |
| 0:52.1 | Aplores there for the world's most famous billionaire philanthropist. Bill Gates from this week's |
| 0:58.0 | World Economic Forum in Davos. The Microsoft founder has been lobbying political and business |
| 1:03.0 | leaders to provide new funding for four of his favourite health funds, supporting initiatives |
| 1:08.5 | in the developing world such as vaccines and immunisation. |
| 1:12.2 | The fight against TB, AIDS, malaria, the eradication of polio and maternal and newborn child |
| 1:18.0 | health. Each project has been extremely successful, he says. He's already put 10 billion of his |
| 1:23.2 | own money into them over two decades, but each requires new multi-billion dollar funding pledges |
| 1:29.8 | from governments to keep going. And he told me why, himself, on a line from Davos. |
| 1:35.3 | The main objective for the Gates Foundation is reminding the countries that keeping up their |
| 1:40.6 | generosity is extremely important. The global health community should be |
| 1:46.4 | phenomenally proud that we beat every goal that we set. We've had challenges with corruption, |
| 1:53.5 | challenges with the pricing, challenges with the distribution. But boy, we've really delivered |
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