Gates and his wife reported their previous philanthropy to Warren Buffett who entrusted 3 trillion yen to the Gates Foundation

Founder of the investment company Berkshire / HathawayWarren BuffettMr. Known as one of the world's leading investors, he is planning to donate almost all his assets to charity. Among them, Mr. Buffett is a founder of Microsoft who is closely related to public and privateBill GatesMr. Buffett has decided to donate 30 billion dollars (about 3 trillion 300 billion yen) to the Mr. Bill Melinda Gates Foundation for a large sum of money, and Mr. Gates announces the foundation's activities as an annual report I report it. Mr. Gates addressed Mr. Buffett "Dear Warren Our 2017 Annual Letter"In the annual report entitled" The Gates Foundation's previous efforts and what kind of achievements we have achieved "is explained in detail.

Warren Buffett's Best Investment | Bill Gates
https://www.gatesnotes.com/2017-Annual-Letter

In 2006, Mr. Buffett decided to trust the Gates Foundation with 30 billion dollars (about 3.3 trillion yen), which accounts for most of its assets. Mr. Buffett, who was sympathized with Gates' philanthropy, said he "deposited a big bet" and deposited a lot of money in the Gates Foundation. Mr. Gates is investing heavy money entrusted by Mr. Buffett on a number of activities to eliminate poverty and make the world better, but I report the results to Mr. Buffett in the form of "annual report" . Mr. Buffett who saw the annual report said, "It is regretful for me to read this report alone, it is important that the efforts in the Gates Foundation be known to the world.This report should be made public to the world" I sent a letter saying that the annual report will be published in Gates' blog "Gates Note". The annual report is interactive format that Bill and Melinda speak to Mr Buffett alternately.


◆ 122 million people
Annual reports reporting activities in 2016 will begin with the number of "122 million people" that Gates and herself likes. Since 1990, the United Nations has announced the number of children under the age of five died in the previous year in September every year, but Gates and his wife have always had heart trouble with this number. Melinda says that the sad fact that many young children are faced of death means "hope", meaning that many children are alive at the same time.

When Mr. and Mrs. Gates went to Africa to see wildlife more than 20 years ago, in Africa millions of children witnessed the fact that they are dying from diarrhea, pneumonia, malaria, etc. Gates, who has been keenly aware of the unfairness of the world, seems to have focused on child mortality since then, and the proposition of "reducing the mortality rate of children" is one of the objectives of the Gates Foundation.

The aforementioned number of "122 million people" means that the number of children saved when the mortality rate was the same as the 1990 mortality rate compared with the real world. The infant mortality rate in poor countries and developing countries has declined year by year, and the fact that many lives are saved is giving courage to the Gates Foundation, which has the goal of "to save the lives of children".


In his activities to save children's lives, Mr. Bill says, "If we can decide how many children a mother has, the more opportunities the child will be healthier and receive school education, and as a result, I also learned that the country could be delivered from poverty. "

When Bill talked about Mr. Buffett's activities to prevent children from dying in 2001, Mr. Buffett said, "The values ​​of the Gates Foundation are consistent with their values." Mr. Buffett seems to have a value of "use resources wisely and avoid waste", but the spirit of frugality to avoid this waste made possible charity activities leading to salvation of over 100 million children Bill thinks.

By the way, the following picture was taken when Mr. Bill and Mr. Buffett who went on a trip to Hong Kong together had lunch at McDonald's. Mr. Buffett proposed that "I will pay the money" Mr. Buffett seems to have issued a discount coupon from his pocket, and it is introduced as an episode showing Mr. Buffett's way of life to live in a frugal manner despite being a rich man.


◆ Vaccines
"Warren: One of the biggest achievements that you gained by donating a lot of money was" vaccines, "Melinda said. The graph below shows trends in the intake rate of basic vaccine for children, showing blue-rich countries, red color the world average, green color poor. It is said that it is the greatest factor to lower the mortality rate of children that the charitable activities of providing children's vaccines to poor countries will surely produce results.


Vaccines for pediatrics are now available at a low price, but in companies with poor countries there is no economic power to buy vaccines, the company is unlikely to sell vaccines and there is no idea that companies are going to develop an inexpensive vaccine. But,GaviThe alliance was established and wealthy countries such as the United States, Britain, Norway, Germany, France and Canada support the vaccination program to provide vaccine development funding, so that five infectious diseases that can now lead to death A vaccine to prevent with one ingestion can be made with less than 1 dollar (about 110 yen), and it can be distributed to poor countries as well.

Studies have shown that the economic benefit of using a 1 dollar vaccine to prevent children from escaping from death is $ 44, so research has shown that vaccines are delivered to poor countries to poverty The gates and wives point out that they are helping to save them.

However, there are reality that 19 million children still living in conflict areas and neighborhoods can not receive vaccination, delivering vaccines to these children, the number of children dying by 2030 to 3 million or less The gates have a goal to make it.

Newborn mortality rate
In 2016, one million newborn babies died that day, 2.5 million children were born and died within a month. The cause of newborn death within one month after childbirth can be categorized into three categories: premature babies, infectious diseases and oxygen deficiency. The neonatal mortality rate in the cause of death of children has increased from 40% in 1990 to 45%.


For decades, experts have struggled to reduce the deaths of infants, but the gates have found answers from a single piece of data. In the graph below, the vertical axis shows the number of deaths per 1000 newborns, and the horizontal axis shows the income per citizen. From here, Mr. Bill points out the simple composition that "the higher the income and the richer the country is, the lower the newborn mortality rate" is, and the wealth is related to health. In other words, Mr. Bill simply thinks that "losing poverty should be a way to lower the newborn mortality rate."


However, Mr. Melinda points out that there are ways that poor countries can do as well. Rwanda in Africa is one of the poorest countries in the world, but he succeeded in reducing the newborn mortality rate by 30% from 2008 to 2015. In Rwanda, there are 19 deaths per 1,000 newborns, and this number is excellent with half of 38 people in the Mali Republic with equivalent GDP. In other words, there must be a way to do without money.

According to Mr. Melinda, the Rwandan government gives breast milk within 1 hour of birth, giving breast milk for 6 months after birth, training healthcare personnel to sanitarily cut the umbilo, told the baby the warmth of the mother The introduction of such "kangaroo care" as possible has resulted in a decrease in the mortality rate of the newborn baby.


"Trained health care workers can save the lives of many babies, but there are cases where skilled people can not treat it because it does not know what caused the death," Bill said, clarifying the cause of death We are preaching the need to do. The Gates Foundation says to take a sample of cells from an infant who died and send the sample as a specimen to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, USA, to identify the cause of death and to feed back to the medical site in Africa Thing.

In the following movie, you can see the state of Mr. Bill attending the dissection of a boy who died three days after being born in South Africa.

CHAMPS - YouTube


Pursuing the cause of the death of newborns is essential to lower the mortality rate of children, and Bill says that investing money in this research is one of the most exciting and important tasks.


◆ Eliminating malnutrition
It is "malnutrition" that accounts for 45% of the cause of death of children. The thing to note here is that malnutrition is not hunger. Bill notes that the probability of causing death due to diarrhea, pneumonia, etc. rises because even if you have enough calories, you can not get the proper nutrients.

A picture of a group of 9 year old boys and girls from Africa / Tanzania. It can be said that because you are taller than the average child of the same age, you can not take the necessary nutrition.


"Malnutrition destroys the most human potential on the planet and the lost potential is a big loss for the world," says Bill. Bill believes that reducing malnutrition children should lead to "waves" that extend the possibilities of human beings. Only 1% of foreign aid is devoted to the nutritional supplement program I pointed out. For that reason, the Gates Foundation seems to invest funds for research that develops methods that children are not malnourished, such as the development of highly nutritious crops, and calls for similar support to governments.

◆ Family planning
For the first time in 2016 the number of women contraceptive in developing countries exceeded 300 million. Melinda said that the arrival of 300 million people only took thirteen years, whereas women who contraceptively took over decades to reach 200 million people. Since there is statistic that the probability that a child born next will be lived up to 1 year will be doubled if the interval of giving birth in the developing country is 3 years, so moderately contraceptive drugs are used for deliberate birth It will lead to a significant reduction in the infant mortality rate.

"Looking back over the past 50 years, there are no countries that have left poverty without improving the availability of contraceptives," Melinda said and points out the importance of receiving education for contraception.

Also, the Gates Foundation participates in "Family Planning 2020"The goal is to provide access to contraceptives to more than 120 million women by 2020. Although the number of women holding contraceptive drugs has steadily increased, it seems that it is necessary to further increase the pace of contraceptives to achieve ambitious goals.


Some of the latest contraceptives seem to have contraceptive effects sustained for only three months after being injected once, but when Mr. Melinda talks about the injections to a woman with many children, " He told me that I have to walk 20 kilometers in the hot to hit the injection? " It is a big challenge to create methods that make it easy to use proper contraceptives.


◆ Sexistic poverty
What he felt while the Gates crawled around the poor states is that the structure of "male domination" in the poorest countries is amazing. As women are restricted in poorer countries, they are asked for permission from men to do anything, so it is better to use the power of women than men to "share information and return it to society" It seems that the gates felt they could not do it.

Melinda said he is involved in group activities that only 75 million women in India can help each other. Many women who are trying to live independently from men work as sex workers, and it seems that such women are forced to live sacrifically in India.


Bill says that there are many things that can be gained by women gathering and supporting each other. Bill says that he succeeded in preventing HIV as one of the major merits. Mr. Bill has appreciated that having an Indian sex worker campaigning customers for the use of condoms, and stopping the spread of HIV infection has greatly benefited society.

◆ Optimism
According to Mr. Bill, it is said that the proportion of extreme poverty, which is not well known, has halved in the past 25 years. In a recent survey, only 1% knew that extreme poverty was halved, 99% of people underestimated efforts to poverty. Bill said that this survey not only tests for poverty but also checks the degree of optimism.


"Optimism is a great wealth," Melinda thinks. According to Mr. Melinda, optimism is not "to believe that things get better automatically" but "to believe that things can be better". This way of thinking seems to be linked to Mr. Buffett's success, "Warren never became optimistic by success, though your optimism has succeeded," he says. Melinda thinks it is important to keep optimism when it is faced with disappointment, while deeply disappointed that HIV vaccine is not yet developed and that breakthrough bactericide has not appeared, it is optimistic I am preaching the importance of being a principle.

According to Mr. Bill, the commitment to make people around the world healthy will be pushed forward by "empathy". Mr. Buffett made a decision to return the property to society by investing assets on the Gates Foundation is nothing but a sympathy. And, adding optimism to sympathy, I am thinking to mix technology, apply strategy, unite with many collaborators and save more lives. Gates seems to be more optimistic towards the elimination of poverty than anyone else.


◆ "0 (zero)"
Bill says he wishes to end the letter of the annual report with the number of zero, which is the number of magic that everyone knows "0 (zero)". Zero, working at the Gates Foundation, said that there are zero malaria, zero HIV, no malnutrition, zero preventable death, zero gap between poor children and other children. Mr. Melinda says that going aiming at this zero is the biggest difference between philanthropy and business. The purpose of a private company is to stay and maintain that business, but for the Gates Foundation it is happy that zeroing every problem and losing its significance of existence.

Among the "zero" that the Gates Foundation aims for, the closest one to realization is the eradication of polio. When the worldwide campaign to eradicate polio in 1988 began, there were 350,000 new patients a year, but there were only 37 cases reported in 2016.


According to Mr. Melinda, 37 reported cases were confined to some areas of northern Nigeria, Afghanistan and Pakistan, which makes me feel the difficulty of delivering polio vaccine to conflict areas, but from 370,000 to 37 cases Although it is an amazing progress, a sharp decline to the end, it is said that the goal is zero to the last. Mr. and Mrs. Gates think that realization of polio eradication has a great meaning, as it will inform the magical figure of zero and make other diseases and immunization systems better.

◆ Betting
Mr. Buffett made "gambling" when making a large contribution to the Gates Foundation. Mr. Buffett, the most successful investor in history, is the best gambler ever and the responsibility is serious for Gates and couple who have deposited money.

Mr. Bill invests heavily in the scientific program which has a great influence on the lives of the poor, gathers scientists excelling in the field of human health from all over the world and nurtures the next generation of experts It is said that. After eradicating polio, we plan to challenge the eradication of malaria, further difficult troubles of malnutrition and activities to save the lives of newborns, the ultimate difficulty. By solving one challenge, Mr. Bill responds to the trust given by Mr. Buffett by making a good flow of making it a hoarse to the next challenge, "We are never disappointed at you I will not let him do it ", he concludes his annual report.