Wall Street Journal: Bill Gates: The Best Investment I’ve Ever Made
Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

“…Over the past two decades, my wife Melinda and I have put a total of $10 billion into organizations that do … challenging [global health] work, including three big ones: Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance; the Global Fund; and the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. … Without more funding over the next 18 months, all three of these institutions will have to dramatically scale back their efforts to fight disease and keep people healthy. This shouldn’t be allowed to happen. These organizations are not trivial or expendable. In fact, they are probably the best investments our foundation has ever made. … Decades of data and experience suggest that money is the most important thing in the fight against disease. The correlation is extremely strong between levels of foreign aid for health and decreasing death rates for some of the deadliest diseases. As contributions go up, deaths retreat. The world now has to decide if it wants to continue that remarkable trend. … Institutions such as Gavi, the Global Fund, and GPEI are the closest things that we have to surefire bets to alleviate suffering and save lives. They are the best investments that Melinda and I have made in the past 20 years, and they are some of the best investments the world can make in the years ahead” (1/16).