Gates Foundation Launches Report to Track Fight Against Global Threats

Monday, September 18, 2017

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation launched a new report aimed at highlighting the 18 greatest global threats to humanity and the progress made at reducing each one.
 
The report is called “Goalkeepers,” and the couple intends to publish it every year until 2030, the year embraced by member nations of the United Nations to be “what we all want the world to look like.”
 
“This report comes out at a time when there is more doubt than usual about the world’s commitment to development. In our own country, Congress is currently considering how to deal with the big cuts to foreign aid proposed in the president’s budget. A similar mood of retrenchment has taken hold in other donor countries,” the Gates write.
 
At the top of their list is child mortality, a number that has declined to 5 million in 2016 from more than 11 million in 1990. The goal for 2030: 2 million.
 
“The global child mortality curve doesn’t tell the whole story. It hides an important insight about what it will take to save the next 5 million,” Melinda Gates writes.
 
Those insights — basics that developed nations take for granted, like antiseptics and vaccinations.
 
“There are still nearly 20 million children in the world who aren’t immunized at all. This explains why measles, preventable with a vaccine that costs less than 20 cents, still kills almost 150,000 children every year,” she writes.
 
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