Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation: Tackling the Tough and Often Enigmatic Issues in the Developing World
Recently I had the pleasure of listening to Melinda Gates present a candid assessment of what she’s learned over the years about sub-Saharan Africa. The take-away for me was how wrong we Westerners can be in our assumptions of what life is actually like in the developing world, and how many of the things we take for granted represent huge challenges for the people living in these horrible conditions.
Here’s Ms. Gates’ recent editorial in the New York Times on how the use of information and communications technology (especially the smart phone) is ameliorating some of the suffering, and here is an article commenting on the situation from the Smart Cities Council.
In my estimation, Ms. Gates deserves a great deal of credit for her hands-on approach to problem solving on behalf of the poorest of the poor. It would have been easy to stay home and hire others to do the hard work—work that is often frustrating and utterly thankless. Yet I often wonder: isn’t her foundation missing the obvious point here? Isn’t it clear that the best way to alleviate human suffering is to manufacture less of it in the first place? Why is the Foundation so slow to involve itself in family planning?
As I noted elsewhere:
I sure wish I had ten minutes with (Bill Gates) to make this point: Of the list of the 20 sovereign countries with the highest birth rates on Earth, 19 of them are in sub-Saharan Africa, and his resources would be far better spent addressing the social conditions that cause tens of millions of babies to be conceived each year who are doomed to be malnourished and condemned to die in searing agony. Almost all those who survive their childhood will live in unimaginable levels of poverty, disease, ignorance and squalor. Before they die, however, in most cases they will reproduce themselves with an appalling number of offspring, thus repeating and expanding the cycle.
The 60-minute (Charlie Rose interview) last night mentioned contraception for just a few seconds, during which Melinda offered this: a) Finding some means of contraception means that both babies’ and the women’s health are likely to be better, and b) It’s women’s #1 issue. (Yes, that’s right; it’s by far the most important request that women make: Please! Help me stop having so many children!)
In the few moments devoted to the subject, she mused: “It’s weird. When I visit them, all I want to talk about is vaccines; all they want to talk about is contraception.”
But is that really so weird? If I were having those conversations, I’d be inclined to regard them as perfectly rational, though desperate, pleas for help.
Apparently, living under these miserable conditions, and caring about the welfare of their children as only mothers can, means wanting to create fewer of them. Mothers seem to know something that defies our understanding as philanthropists: alleviating suffering means manufacturing less of it. This is what these women are telling us with heart-piercing clarity. Why is this so hard for us to grasp? Why aren’t we listening?
