Here follows the 2011 Annual Letter of Bill Gates, in which he writes about foreign aid to the poor, suggesting that a society can not be stable if people are left to become desperate.

The Annual Letter of Bill Gates for 2011: Do not let people become desperate

In this year’s letter, I make the case against cutting foreign aid for the poorest, even in the current budget environment. Investing in aid works. It has had a huge impact on the lives of poor people, and it also helps people in donor countries by promoting stable and prosperous societies across the globe. Whether you think it’s an issue of morality or enlightened self-interest, aid spending is uniquely effective spending, and I wanted to give some examples.

The most important example is vaccines. Vaccines are the best investment in health. Just a few doses of a vaccine protects children from debilitating and deadly diseases for a lifetime. And most of them are very inexpensive. The measles vaccine costs 18 cents. The polio vaccine costs 13 cents. That’s a small price to pay to save a life.

Related:

• Bill Gates, We can save more than 4 million additional lives by 2015
• Bill Gates, Vaccines for all children is my vision for the next decade
• Melinda Gates: Bill and I called for the next ten years to be the Decade of Vaccines
• Techonomy – When Bill Gates arrived, it was like a rock star entering the room
• Bill Gates in Nigeria: I was very impressed with Nigeria’s progress against polio
• Windows 8 tablets overcome the ipad
• Bill Gates, Innovation saves us (Annual Letter, 2012)
• Bill Gates, Now we can chart a course to end the harm of malaria

Pages: 1 2