2015 Gates Annual Letter

http://www.gatesnotes.com/2015-Annual-Letter

by nichodges • 12 years ago

172 109 12 years ago

gatesnotes.com

karatehammer• 12 years ago

I love it when the richest people in the entire history of civilization tell me how much they are helping us!

thorin• 12 years ago

There are plenty of other rich people doing nothing and also plenty of poor people that help others everyday!

mehwoot• 12 years ago

I love it when the richest people in the entire history of civilization

By dollar value, maybe, but adjusted for inflation they aren't even close.

adventured• 12 years ago

Gates is richer than Rockefeller was, by a factor of upwards of two. So yeah, he's definitely among the richest in world history. He's also easily the richest private citizen (non-government, non-military) in history.

Rockefeller's wealth peaked at between $1 and $2 billion, according to the best records on him, including his biographies and records from the Rockefeller Archives. Inflation adjusting those numbers based on the 1890-1910 time frame in which the dollar was extremely stable for the most part, you get between $20 (20x$1b) and $60 (30x$2b) billion, depending on if you want to use the low ball on his wealth plus a low ball on the inflation adjustment vs the opposite end of the spectrum.

rmason• 12 years ago

I think Gates needs to find the next Norman Borlaug, whether it be at a university or in industry and fund him or her to set up a research facility in an African country.

yRetsyM• 12 years ago

A little off topic but would love to know more about the platform/tech behind his site. My casual observations sees: Azure, New Relic, FB/Twitter integrations. Perhaps some scss/sass? Ruby or .Net?

Hytosys2• 12 years ago

http://i.imgur.com/CC6CNf3.png

pdevr• 12 years ago

It is more or less what you observed: http://builtwith.com/gatesnotes.com

Sniperfish• 12 years ago

PC reading, I've not tried it on mobile, but I always enjoy the layout / setup of the Gates Notes. Very clear to read and navigate.

manyxcxi• 12 years ago

The actual letter site is built with .NET MVC and a lot of fancy JS/SASS/etc. deployed to Azure. It fits into an ecosystem of other more complex components (Akamai, CMS, proxies, etc.).

aramadia• 12 years ago

I'm skeptical online education will have any significant impact at an elementary school level, especially when you consider the cost effectiveness of such a strategy. If were talking about video lectures (especially live) you need to figure out how to hook up reliable internet into these schools. Most of the internet access projects are just enough to get wikipedia loaded. And not to mention the cost of the hardware itself, a tablet per student isn't even feasible in western public schools.

Hytosys2• 12 years ago

We definitely have had a long history of "this changes everything for education!"[1], but 15 years is a long time for internet infrastructure to change and spread. The article seems to allude to such innovations.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEmuEWjHr5c

tim3334• 12 years ago

The video makes a good point

johnloeber• 12 years ago

I also doubt that online education at that level will have a big impact, but that's because of the properties of that age-group.

Online education usually already requires some educational foundations -- an app to help you learn trigonometry might be effective, but I doubt that an app to help you learn to read would be very effective. I also think that young children in this age-group tend to learn more by watching, interacting with, and mimicking adults than from objects. The educational foundations of the primary school level will likely have to be supplied by adults.

ggreer• 12 years ago

Have you seen Batman (the Chris Nolan movie)? It's pretty frickin' awesome. You've got incredible special effects, great script, multiple takes, amazing actors, and great sound and it's very engaging. ... If instead of having movies- say we're going to have that script performed by the local town troupe. So in every small town in America (if movies didn't exist), they would have to then recreate The Dark Knight. You know, with home-sewn costumes and jumping across the stage and not getting their lines quite right, and not really looking like the people in the movie, and no special effects or anything. That would suck! It would be terrible. That's education.

-- Elon Musk (chatting with Sal Khan)[1]

I think there's a ton of improvement to be had in the education space. People have used technology to make many forms of entertainment more compelling, but education is pretty similar to half a century ago: classrooms, teachers, lectures, etc. A lot of the stagnation is due to bureaucratic and legislative inertia, which isn't such a big problem in countries lacking widespread public schooling.

With regards to cost and bandwidth issues: Remember, Gates's predictions/goals are for the next 15 years. Technology is only going to get cheaper and faster. In 2000, iPods didn't exist. In 2030, even low-end tablets will put current hardware to shame.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDwzmJpI4io#t=2280

marak830• 12 years ago

In fact in Japan atm I use a starboard (basicly a large projector with touch capabilities), in my classroom. If things like this became more common, I'm sure education could be shaken up a lot.

It is an excellent medium to teach a class withe.

jkot• 12 years ago

I think you need bit more fantasy. Tablet with 60 gigs of videos on internal card, could cost around $50, not everyone needs ipads. 3G is enough for 90% of cases. And many African countries have (or soon will have) better and cheaper mobile connectivity than US or Europe, since there is no other infrastructure available

minthd• 12 years ago

No need to doubt. There are already some very encouraging stuff going on:

Malawi app 'teaches UK pupils 18 months of maths in six weeks' : http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-29063614

barry-cotter• 12 years ago

School isn't about learning. It's about socialisation. If school was about learning there'd be a great deal more interleaved practice and spaced repetition. [http://www.salon.com/2014/04/20/ditch_the_10000_hour_rule_wh...]

Gray is mostly right: forager kids learn all they need when free to play all day, forager adults work all they need without toiling, and kids can learn modern skills this way today. But there is no net trend toward free schools, and I expect a wholesale move would be a disaster. Yes, it works for some students, including most who stay until they graduate at free schools, but parents of kids for whom it doesn’t work probably pull their kids out. And free school graduates probably avoid the ugly jobs schools were designed to make kids accept. School isn’t about learning “material,” school is about learning to accept workplace domination and ranking, and tolerating long hours of doing boring stuff exactly when and how you are told. Others seem to agree: - See more at: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/08/school-isnt-about-lear...

germinalphrase• 12 years ago

Additionally - and particularly at the elementary level - school is only partially focused on developing 'academic' skills. A significant amount of teacher time/effort is funneled into social/emotional development as a child will not learn effectively if they are cognitively/emotionally/socially unprepared to learn (or undergoing crisis/stress).

To suggest that all children need to develop fully is a tablet with exciting learning materials is to ignore that learning is a social activity (both in reference to learning about/from the people around you, as well as learning from the recorded knowledge of others).

jammmuel• 12 years ago

There are many one-to-many device models which can work. Shameless plug to what we're working on at onebillion:

https://onebillion.org.uk/oneclass

tim3334• 12 years ago

That looks kind of cool. Reminds me of hanging in Malawi. It's interesting that all the educational materials I studied from birth to getting in to Cambridge would probably take about 30mb of storage and could fit on pretty much any modern device (excluding science practicals). We didn't have video etc. just ~13 text books and some teachers with chalk/white boards. It's always seemed to me that motivation is probably the biggest thing. A kid with a photocopied text book who is enthusiastic about reading it and doing the exercises will probably do better than a similar one with all the facilities who is unmotivated.

chime2• 12 years ago

1. Wiping out major diseases - brings tears to my eyes knowing that GF, Carter and other foundations will permanently get rid of so many horrible diseases.

2. African crop yield - If US can grow 159 bushels of corn per acre, and African countries are currently at 29, why is the 15 year goal for African countries only 48 bushels per acre instead of somewhere close to the US? Is that because of tech-transfer difficulties or rather the soil/environment?

3. Mobile banking - Wish US would get on with it too. All the problems he listed apply to the poor in US too. There is no way for me to immediately send $100 to anyone in the US without resorting to BTC or wire-transfers. Even with https://www.clearxchange.com/ it still takes 2-3 days.

4. Software for education - Couldn't agree more. However, I'm still not sure if we've achieved the correct "global education" format yet. Check out these two KA links: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/becoming-modern/roman... and https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-history-basics/Ar... - the first reads like a dull Wikipedia page with nested commenting for interaction and the other is a droll Youtube edutainment video. Is this really going to help a 16 year old in Vietnam, Mongolia, or Sierra Leone learn about Art History especially if they cannot understand the accents or localized references? I'm not suggesting that every video or text be translated/localized but before we aim for better software, we should at least figure out the format first. What if you are 12 year old and want to learn the same topic? What if you are 34 with two degrees in sciences? If online education was space exploration, we are in the Wright-brothers stage, decades from even Wernher von Braun stage. Instead of every major university just uploading their video lectures and syllabi online, I'd love to see someone try to create a real global school (non-commercial) that presents the education material fit for each learner. I don't mean tests like what KA is doing but the course material itself.

onion2k• 12 years ago

* If US can grow 159 bushels of corn per acre, and African countries are currently at 29, why is the 15 year goal for African countries only 48 bushels per acre instead of somewhere close to the US?*

Irrigation probably presents the biggest barrier, especially in the Northern equatorial regions of Africa. Once you're utilizing 100% of the water available you can't grow anything else.

colechristensen• 12 years ago

Your average American farmer has hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars in capital equipment, spends a sizable portion of output revenue on inputs (fertilizers, pest control, seeds, insurance, etc.) and is supported by university extension programs, government subsidies and minimum price supports, and on and on and on. The lack of industry to produce inputs and equipment comparable to what is available here will take decades to even close.

Sure you could get _an_ African farmer to American level yields, but that's different than what essentially is economic reorganization for the _majority_ of workers in African economies.

Also, remember this isn't an agile software project that can go through an iteration a day. You plant once a year, you harvest once a year; an entire continent doubling yields in only 15 iterations is pretty good.

marincounty2• 12 years ago

I heard the Gates foundation is still giving out Monsanto seed to African farmers. They can plant one season--then they can't afford to replant. Maybe things have changed? I know Warren Buffet tried to reason with Gates, but unsure if Monsanto is still involved? On another note, I hope someone developes a better condom--not just for use in Africa, but for use everywhere. We have enough people?

rahimnathwani3• 12 years ago

There is no way for me to immediately send $100 to anyone in the US without resorting to BTC or wire-transfers.

Paypal? Venmo?

Swizec• 12 years ago

Neither of those is immediate. It still takes 3 days to cash out.

But apparently you can use Western Union to send actual cold hard cash anywhere immediately. I know, I was surprised too, wouldn't know if my girlfriend didn't work there.

grecy2• 12 years ago

Not only are they not immediate, you have to pay a fee.

In most developed countries, it's completely free to send money instantly from one account to another, even across banks and account holders.

k-mcgrady6• 12 years ago

> "There is no way for me to immediately send $100 to anyone in the US without resorting to BTC or wire-transfers."

Not sure specifically what you mean by wire transfers but in the UK I can open my banks app (or websites), enter the sort code and account number of a person and instantly transfer them money from my account for no charge. Is this not possible in the US?

chime2• 12 years ago

Correct. There is a 2-3 day delay.

scottlilly• 12 years ago

There is also the scenario where someone may not be able to open a bank account due to an extremely bad credit history, or not being able to meet minimum balance requirements (or have to incur relatively heavy 'service fees' to maintain an account with a low balance). The current mainstream alternative is money transfer services that charge a hefty percentage for transfers.

http://money.cnn.com/2012/09/12/pf/fdic-bank-accounts/

tegeek• 12 years ago

Here in Sweden we've something called Moible Id and Bank-ID.

You register your mobile phone number on bank website (all Swedish banks offer this service) & download your security certificate on your cell phone or computer.

And from now on you can not only send money to any other mobile phone (via Swish [1]) but you can use your Mobile-ID/Bank-ID to login to every Govt/Private website/app.

Almost every company offers login via Mobile/Bank-ID. Guess what? I can sign off my taxes, parental leaves, sick leaves and whatnot just using the same MobileID. I don't create any logins/password on any Swedish websites at all. Transferring money isn't any exception.

[1] https://www.getswish.se/

superuser2• 12 years ago

Domestic wires in the U.S. (the only actually immediate form of money transfer besides cash or Western Union) typically carries a fee between $25 and $50 per transaction.

BTC is not immediate either, it takes several days to cash out through an exchange because it will ultimately be settled with you through ACH.

grecy2• 12 years ago

I'm from Australia (where we have what you describe in the UK) and was shocked when I came to the US and Canada that they don't have such a thing. It's like going backwards in time 10 years.

Here in Canada the way to do it is an "email money transfer" where you put in someone's email address, and they get an email with a link they have to click then put in their online banking username/password in the page it takes them to. It's nasty, though it does work.

DasIch• 12 years ago

3. Mobile banking - Wish US would get on with it too. All the problems he listed apply to the poor in US too.

That seems to be a problem of incompetence and politics and not of technology though. I remember a few friends in school messaging each other by making 1ct money transfers to each other with their banks mobile app.

thejosh• 12 years ago

Always feel lucky here in Australia you can transfer anyone money via bank transfer for free..

deanclatworthy• 12 years ago

Within Australia. You probably can't do international transfers for free. The same local transfers system exists here in the Nordics too :)

markba• 12 years ago

In my experience it's only near-instant if it's to the same bank. ANZ to CBA always seems to be overnight, for example.

ryannevius• 12 years ago

3. Square Cash?

stinos• 12 years ago

2. African crop yield - If US can grow 159 bushels

One factor (apart from soil type/access and amounts of water/available tech) might also be this: maybe Gates is considering the environmental impact of growing those 159 bushels just isn't worth it. Without the heavy use of pesticides, fertilizers etc the yield would be lower, but the impact on nature would be much more reasonable and sustainable.

7952• 12 years ago

2. African crop yield - If US can grow 159 bushels

A lot of African farmed land is heavily populated. In a small area you can have hundreds of farmers with tiny fields that have to support numerous people. That makes agriculture and the environment more of a social issue than a technical one. It is hard to imagine this in the west where the countryside has very few people and is farmed almost exclusively by machines. In this context yield is less important as a metric compared to how the land is delivering nutrional value. If the goal is to give local people a healthy diet then western food technoloogy can be very inappropriate.

simonebrunozzi• 12 years ago

#3 will be solved by Stellar.org (at least, that's what I believe).

speleding5• 12 years ago

"Wiping out major diseases"

This is great, obviously, but overpopulation is a huge problem and regrettably that problem will now get worse. The predictions for the maximum population expected at mid-century have recently been adjusted upwards. Resources will be depleted ever more quickly if poor people get as rich as Bill predicts.

I have no answer. Surely we cannot withhold medecine from poor people to prevent overpopulation. But two decades from now overpopulation will be the major worry on everybody's mind if this trend continues.

Edit: The assumption of negative growth once countries hit a certain level of development/stability/richness has recently stopped being true [1], I probably should have mentioned that in my first comment

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projections_of_population_growt...

vec2• 12 years ago

This[1] suggests that fighting poverty is a pretty effective way to fight overpopulation. Most rich countries are reproducing well below replacement rates, and as poor countries become rich their average fertility reliably plummets. There are number of theories as to why, but one of the more compelling ones is that peoples' relationship to their children changes when they can be reasonably certain that all of those children will survive to adulthood. If that's correct, then public health initiatives may provide an even more direct impact on wide-scale population control.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic-economic_paradox

henrikschroder5• 12 years ago

It turns out that most countries go into negative growth once they hit a certain level of development/stability/richness. The solution to the problem is therefore, obviously, to ensure that all countries reach this level.

I remain a perpetual technological optimist, we'll solve this problem as well.

Btw, it's very hard not to read your comment like "wouldn't it be better for everyone if all these poor people just died off...?"

trcollinson• 12 years ago

Although I am by no means an expert in population, there are a number of interesting studies which show a deep statistical correlation between increased income and decreased birth rates over time. Higher income families and high income societies have significantly lower population replacement rates.

That being said it also seems that there is an immediate correlation between suddenly higher income and a individual family unit also increasing (i.e. when a family gets a sudden, large increase in income they will generally also increase their family size at that time).

So, with all of that being said, since in the words of the Gates this is a "bet", we could also potentially bet that by increasing the number of middle class individuals within a given population we will also see an overall increase in birthrate among those populations.

speleding5• 12 years ago

Interesting, lots of downvotes and several upvotes (saw it jump up and down several times). I guess this splits our community. Too bad the point is apparently deemed inappropriate for discussion. I would have enjoyed to learn what smart people here think we should do about this.

mahyarm• 12 years ago

Easy free birth control and family planning will reverse that trend quickly. Look at Iran for example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_planning_in_Iran

zb• 12 years ago

If US can grow 159 bushels of corn per acre, and African countries are currently at 29, why is the 15 year goal for African countries only 48 bushels per acre instead of somewhere close to the US?

And getting yields to that point has come at the cost of an environmental and social catastrophe in the US. It's also uneconomically expensive - though it's easy not to notice because the government pays junk food companies to buy the excess and feed it to us at ultra-low prices.

Why on earth would you want to inflict that on Africa too?

stainednapkin2• 12 years ago

GF doesn't care. Their main goal is to ensure the endowment performs as expected.

clu3• 11 years ago

#4:"global education" I agree with you completely that KA is far from a "global" player. It's interesting you mentioned Vietnam there because I have actually been building a kind of KA clone here in Vietnam for the last ~2 years or so. And here's my analysis when I started it.

- A very large percentage of Vietnamese students wouldn't be able to understand KA's videos because of their English proficiency.

- Even if the content was translated & subtitled, the videos' topics were in a way "foreign" to most of the students, especially the K1-K12's videos

- Other players like Udacity, Coursera ,... mainly focused on specific topics and that will be more relevant to Vietnamese students/workers, say software developers. But again, it's only relevant to those students with pretty good understanding of their field's terminologies in English. Those students are the minority.

- Say, if I were to start a trello's clone, I would have little chance against trello because most of Vietnamese would be able to use trello with out any problems, so yeah, they might prefer trello.

So starting a KA clone would be "safer". And on top of that, I've always been passionate about software & education & English language, so I started it. I started with English courses, which I thought were what the Vietnamese students would need most in their career later in life.

So in case anyone thinking of making a KA clone like me, please read on. It's not an easy journey at all, especially when your resources are limited. Building the platform AND the content at the same time is real tough. It's not easy to convince good (English) teachers to go online and give lessons. Giving lessons offline is still fairly lucrative for good English teachers. Or they are shy acting in front of the camera and going to be seen by "everyone". Or they are not passionate enough a teacher. Or they simply didn't believe in us.

I haven't been successful yet, still struggling but the journey's been great and I'm really proud of what we've built: a stable platform (has most of the features from KA or udacity), found 2 young passionate English teachers and together we've built a few English courses.

So yes, that's my startup journey so far. The final results? 2015 will tell, right now we're running a little short of cash but I'm hopeful. Sometimes I just wish I was Salman Khan and met "that" investor, Bill Gates. Gates' note on online education is exactly what I've been thinking as well: It is still at an early stage and improvising for maybe 10 years to come.

afoot• 12 years ago

I'm always so inspired when I see these. The idea that it's possible to make such a significant impact in the world by taking a smarter, more focused approach is so simple but so powerful. Some of the cheap and practical steps around saving newborn lives are exactly the kind of actions that have a huge impact. Although Gates clearly has significant resources, it makes me feel that I too can help, and that's really important.

chris-at• 12 years ago

Great work!

But the presentation is awful. Why do sites feel the need to hijack my scroll wheel?

tim3334• 12 years ago

Yeah, resorted to Clearly

iamdanfox• 12 years ago

Are there opportunities for hackers to volunteer in projects like mobile payments? I feel like donating a bit of development time to the right project has the potential to have a bigger impact than just donating money.

DominikPeters• 12 years ago

Probably not, sadly. The technologies currently in use (such as M-PESA in Kenya or bKash in Bangladesh) seem to be corporate and proprietary which to some extent is necessary given the need for lots of physical places to offer cash-to-mobile-money exchanges. There seems to be little involvement from charities so far, except maybe GiveDirectly, though so far they're just using M-PESA.

joshz404• 12 years ago

I'm not aware of any for mobile money, however there are a number of projects that focus on health:

http://openmrs.org

http://openlmis.org (*full disclosure I'm involved here and we could use help organizing a community)

Generalized data collection:

http://opendatakit.org

SMS:

http://rapidpro.io

http://frontlinesms.com

hgh• 12 years ago

Hi there, I work for a mobile payments company called Zoona (check us out at http://www.ilovezoona.com). Our tech team is based in Cape Town but all of our actual operations are in Zambia, Malawi and expanding to a few more countries soon. Getting some help on the dev would be awesome, and I'd be happy to chat more about what might make sense.

Feel free to get in touch and we can see if something makes sense - hans@ilovezoona.com.

(Same goes for anyone else reading this! Depending on your interests, may be able to link you to a few other projects doing some interesting stuff)

TeMPOraL2• 12 years ago

Wait... where's the letter? All I get is a box that asks for my e-mail.

icebraining• 12 years ago

Weird, I didn't get that box. Have you tried closing it and scrolling?

TeMPOraL2• 12 years ago

Surprisingly, the box is gone now.

But first few times I visited the site, I got just a subscription box as main page content. I actually typed in a random e-mail, got "Thanks!" as a reply, and that was all.

dignick3• 12 years ago

I love the positivity of his messages and the work he is doing to improve the lives of those that need it most. His call for us to become global citizens is greatly needed to tackle many of the problems we face and stop thinking, acting and voting just for ourselves.

However, global warming is such a big and immediate issue — we have until 2017 to start reducing carbon dioxide output, after that we lock in >2C dangerous, irreversible warming — that despite all the progress being made in developing countries today, the effects of climate change are likely to negate much of that work in the future.

Gates is bound by capitalist ideology, his emphasis on the need to develop a 'miracle cure' source of energy is evidence of that — we have the technology we need to solve the problem today, but it will require a fundamental shift of focus and wealth. We are putting profit before the place we live. We are betting big on the miracle cure in the future. What if the miracle never happens?

edit: I've written a post with a bit more detail and sources: https://shamocracy.org/2015/01/22/2015-gates-annual-letter/

collyw2• 12 years ago

Got a few deniers of global warming on this site. As well as believers in the economic status quo.

dignick3• 12 years ago

chroma• 12 years ago

Even if one accepts your claims about the severity of global warming, there's a slight flaw in your proposal: It has zero chance of being implemented.

Reduce emissions in two years? You may as well ask everyone to breathe less. No civilization has voluntarily reduced its resource consumption. China and India (along with the developing world) are more than offsetting any minor reductions by OECD countries.[1]

If the situation is as dire as you suggest, the only solution to global warming is technological. Compared to carbon-neutral energy, fossil fuels are cheaper and more convenient to use. Until that's not the case, CO2 emissions will continue to increase.

1. http://cdiac.ornl.gov/GCP/images/countries_co2_emissions.jpg

dignick3• 12 years ago

I said begin reducing carbon dioxide output by 2017, otherwise by the IEA's calculations our entire carbon budget will be spoken for. We have known about this for a long time, but we have done nothing, indeed we have increased carbon output, so no we don't have much time left. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/nov/09/fossil-fu...

Absolutely I agree that we can't solve the problem of global warming in the West alone, it's a global problem that needs a global solution. I do not agree there is zero chance of it being implemented, but it will be hard work. The problem humanity faces today is a concentration of power and control, exhibited by the growing inequality in the world (the latest figures from Oxfam show the top 1% now have 48% of the wealth, forecast to pass 50% next year, and 80 people have the same wealth as 50% of the worlds population). It is a system that is rigged against the people and environment for the purposes of wealth generation for the few. It is a system that it's proponents truly believe in, and who deny the reality of climate change because if they are wrong, their whole model collapses. But things are changing, and fast. Particularly in the UK at the moment we are seeing the rapid ascent of the Green Party, particularly among young voters, as the population is becoming fed up of the establishment and austerity. The Green Party's message is 'The politics of the future doesn't have to look like the politics of the past'.

Leaving the market to solve the problem is clearly not working, we need substantial government intervention. Things like 'polluter pays' taxation and not allowing global trade agreements to take precedence over activities that would produce a lower net output of carbon dioxide like localised food production and subsidised, localised renewable energy production.

I strongly recommend reading Naomi Klein's 'This Changes Everything' for a background on the history, current situation, future solutions and what will happen if we don't take action. http://thischangeseverything.org/

tempodox• 12 years ago

Concerning the form of this presentation, if it were gauged in WTFs per minute, this one would score a rather high count.

seeingfurther• 12 years ago

What Bill and Melinda are doing is amazing and quite admirable. My only question after reading this is... Shouldn't there also be some focus on lowering birth rates in poor areas? Am I missing something, or wouldn't that go hand in hand toward achieving their goals?

AndrewKemendo• 12 years ago

Reducing infant mortality rates and lowering poverty rates is thought to have this exact effect. The data between these statistics is correlated but the exact mechanism of action is still poorly understood.

snowwrestler• 12 years ago

Birth rates decline as overall health and living standards increase. This is an empirical relationship (we've observed it but don't know the exact mechanisms), but it has been quite consistent in societies throughout the world for decades now.

This is the reason that the 1970s overpopulation doom scenarios never came to pass. And it is the reason that foundations today focus on improving health and living standards, rather than birth rates specifically.

speleding5• 12 years ago

That has been true since the 1970's but unfortunately the latest numbers paint a very different picture. Birth rates are not dropping anymore in recently-rich countries according to the UN (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projections_of_population_growt...)

goodJobWalrus2• 12 years ago

In addition to previous answers, Melinda is working hard on giving access to contraception to the women. In fact, contraception is her "signature issue" (in her own words).

2015 Gates Annual Letter

Related Stories