Gates calls on Australia to boost vaccination aid
The Age
Saturday March 26, 2011
THE world's biggest philanthropist has urged Australia currently reviewing its foreign aid program to put more money towards vaccinating Third World children.In an exclusive interview with The Saturday Age, Bill Gates (below) said funding vaccines in developing countries was the least corruptible and best value-for-money aid governments could offer.But he said foreign aid had a poor image, a "Cold War reputation", among the taxpayers who fund it, and that governments needed to do a better job selling the benefits of their overseas contributions.The former Microsoft chairman was in India this week to see the results of a massive polio eradication effort largely funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.Before eradication efforts began, India had 200,000 children paralysed by polio every year. A massive vaccination effort, involving the immunisation of about 170 million children a week, led to just one reported case this year.Australia will almost double its overseas aid budget over the next five years to $8 billion. But, at present, just $60 million of that is earmarked for the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation.And AusAid is defending itself against allegations millions of taxpayer dollars have been siphoned off from aid projects abroad. It's alleged more than $3.4 million of Australian money has been misappropriated in 27 countries.But the head of AusAid, Peter Baxter, said the amount lost is less than 0.2 per cent of Australia's $20 billion in aid spending over the past seven years."Over 99.8 per cent of the program ends up in the hands of those people that we're trying to help, and we work in some of the most difficult countries on earth," he said.Mr Gates met Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd recently, and his wife Melinda met Prime Minister Julia Gillard, urging that Australia put more of its money towards vaccines for developing-world children."Australia did increase some of the money it gives to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation, we're encouraging them to do even more. We had the chance to say, 'Hey, have a good hard look at this,'" Mr Gates said.He said that with budgets under attack all over the developed world, governments needed to do a better job selling their overseas assistance to their own taxpayers.Australia also provides money to the World Health Organisation for its immunisation projects, as well as directly to polio vaccination programs in Afghanistan and Burma.
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