Bill Gates’ Simple Message for Germany: Smart Aid Can Save Millions of Lives | Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Media contact
Karoline Lerche
ONE
Phone: +49.30.319.891.570

BERLIN -- Bill Gates will visit Berlin today to share the proof that smart aid works. He will introduce “Living Proof,” a campaign designed to challenge common misconceptions around aid by providing evidence of how smart, targeted spending on development saves millions of lives and help people lift themselves and their families out of poverty.

The Living Proof campaign will provide evidence to show that we are on the brink of enormous successes in advancing global health and fighting poverty but these victories will only become reality if donor governments keep up their support. In conversations with the Federal President, the Chancellor, and the Development Minister, Gates will express his acknowledgement of Germany´s generosity and push for even stronger support for proven solutions such as the GAVI Alliance.

The numbers are impressive:

  • In the last 50 years, child deaths in the developing world have been cut by more than 50 percent, despite the birth rate increasing;

  • Polio cases have been reduced by 99 percent since 1988, and we are now on the threshold of eradicating only the second disease in history;

  • Measles deaths in Africa dropped by 92 percent between 2000 and 2008;

  • Malaria cases have been reduced by 50 percent in 38 countries between 2000 and 2008;

  • Ghana’s agriculture sector is growing at more than 5 percent a year and the country cut hunger levels by 75 percent from 1990 to 2004.
“I come to Germany with the simple message that smart aid works,” Bill Gates said. “And while we have facts and figures as evidence, it’s the lives saved and the futures restored that are the real living proof that our investments in aid are working.”

Working with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, ONE Germany will share the proof with all its members, their friends and families, across its social networks, and with its partners in the NGO community.

Tobias Kahler, director of ONE Germany, adds: “Thanks to the results-oriented operations of GAVI, millions of children are alive who would otherwise have died as a result of preventable diseases. Whether or not GAVI will be able to scale up this success will depend on whether Germany contributes an amount adequate to its international stature. The time of truth will come in June at the donor conference.”