Bill and Melinda Gates are begin­ning to do some lob­by­ing on behalf of the world’s poor. They are urg­ing Washington’s pol­i­cy­mak­ers to con­tinue fund­ing US aid programs.

In a speech made at the capi­tol today, the Gate­ses were armed with charts, Pow­er­Point slides, and videos that show what US aid has accom­plished in recent years, and what it could con­tinue to accomplish.

From CNET, writer Ina Fried watched the web cast of the presentation.

“When it comes to global health, Bill and I are optimists–but we’re impa­tient opti­mists,” Melinda Gates said in a state­ment ahead of a speech on Tues­day. “The world is get­ting bet­ter, but it’s not get­ting bet­ter for every­one, and it’s not get­ting bet­ter fast enough.”

Melinda Gates pointed to a pro­gram in South Africa where antivi­ral treat­ments are help­ing those liv­ing with HIV, but she said that for every two get­ting the treat­ment, there are five oth­ers that are miss­ing out.

“That’s the kind of thing that makes us impa­tient opti­mists,” she said.
…

In his speech, Bill Gates noted that the U.S. gov­ern­ment has increased its spend­ing on global health each of the last 10 years and said that the invest­ment is pay­ing off.

“We’re here to say two words you don’t often hear about gov­ern­ment pro­grams,” Bill Gates said. “Thank you.”

He pointed to what he called the most beau­ti­ful pic­ture he had ever seen–a chart of child­hood deaths world­wide that shows death falling by more than half since 1960, when 20 mil­lion kids a year died annually.

But, he said, even the cur­rent level of 9 mil­lion child­hood deaths a year is too many. Gates called on pol­i­cy­mak­ers to com­mit to reduc­ing by nearly half the num­ber of chil­dren that die each year, from the present level of 9 mil­lion per year to less than 5 mil­lion by 2025.

“U.S. sup­port has already helped to reduce deaths of young chil­dren by more than 50 per­cent in the past 50 years,” Bill Gates said in a state­ment ahead of the speech. “If we keep up our com­mit­ment, it’s pos­si­ble to cut child mor­tal­ity in half again–just 15 years from now. What’s more, we can do it with proven inter­ven­tions that already exist.”

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