‘The strain is the worst of my lifetime’: how Bill Gates is staying optimistic. Covid and Ukraine war were major setbacks in pursuit of global development goals, philanthropist admits, but cutting back on aid would be ‘tragic’

The figures are bad, progress has stalled and all the trends that had been building hope in the world becoming a fairer place are showing sharp about-turns. Yet Bill Gates, who has poured billions of his own dollars into eradicating poverty, remains “optimistic”.

“It would be awful to turn away just because we’re getting bad grades due to unexpected setbacks,” he told the Guardian in an exclusive interview ahead of Tuesday’s publication of the annual Goalkeepers Report from the foundation he co-chairs.

“If we keep funding development aid properly we’ll get back where we were before the pandemic within a couple of years and build from there. But at best you can say it was a three- or four-year setback. In some areas, even worse.

“If you just look at rates of childhood vaccinations then the pandemic was a huge setback,” he added. “We’re back at 2009 levels of vaccine coverage.”

more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/13/the-strain-is-the-worst-of-my-lifetime-how-bill-gates-is-staying-optimistic