Bill Gates applauds David Cameron’s pledge to increase foreign aid

Microsoft founder says PM’s decision to embrace UN overseas aid target is ‘absolutely fantastic’ Bill Gates, the philanthropist and founder of Microsoft, on Sunday praised David Cameron for his “absolutely fantastic” decision to embrace the UN target of spending 0.7% of GNI (gross national income) on overseas aid by 2013. “The UK government is taking a lead,” Gates said of Britain’s role in convening the London conference of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (Gavi). Speaking on a conference call organised by the charity Save the Children, he said that Britain’s lead contrasted with other EU countries. “They have been calling round and encouraging others to give. They’ve got a commitment to increasing aid which is absolutely fantastic.” Gates, who is co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which launched the Decade of Vaccines campaign, said that Britain, Norway, Sweden and Australia are expected to make generous commitments at the conference. But he was less sure about some EU countries. “Germany and France we are not sure how strong they will come in. A group of countries have been thinking how generous can they be for this cause.” Cameron will announce at the conference on Monday that Britain is to step up its commitment to vaccinate 80 million children and save 1.4m lives by 2015. Britain will pledge to vaccinate one child every two seconds for five years and to save one child’s life every two minutes. Britain will also pledge to vaccinate more children against preventable diseases than the population of England. The prime minister defended his decision to increase the aid budget in an article in the Observer amid unease among Tory MPs. “I don’t believe it would be right to ignore the difference we can make, turn inwards solely to our own problems and effectively balance our books while breaking our promises to the world’s poorest,” he wrote. Justin Forsyth, the chief executive of Save the Children, said other countries need to follow Britain’s lead on funding vaccinations. Save the Children is campaigning for world leaders to agree to fund in full vaccines for the world’s poorest children, helping to save 4 million lives. Speaking on the same conference call, Forsyth said: “We need, as Bill said, a few governments other than the UK and Norway to step up to the mark. We are looking for a little bit more from France and Germany. We are looking for some leadership from the EU, from the European Commission, to pledge a considerable amount of money. We are not quite sure yet what the US is going to pledge. So there is still a little bit of a way to go. But it does look like it is lining up – all this pressure and build up.” Forsyth, who worked as Gordon Brown’s director of strategic communications until the election, praised Cameron. “These meetings don’t just happen, it is all the build up to them. It is, firstly, David Cameron deciding to host it with Andrew Mitchell, the secretary of state for international development. That leadership really provides a crunch moment. And Bill has been going round the world urging leaders and governments endlessly to cough up the money and we have been doing our bit as NGOs.” Aid Bill Gates Foreign policy David Cameron Nicholas Watt guardian.co.uk

Posted by on June 12, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.