Global Health

Gates Foundation: Celebrating Success and the Importance of Storytelling

by Mike Smith

category: Malaria

Published November 18, 2009 @ 09:12AM PT

• 6421 Views

This is a guest post by Joe Cerrell, director, global health policy and advocacy, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Too often in global health, we zero in on the obstacles and neglect to celebrate the successes. While the health challenges facing the developing world are very real, many poor countries are making real progress against diseases like HIV and malaria, often with support from the American government.

That’s the message that Bill and Melinda Gates recently brought to Washington, D.C. In a presentation titled, “Living Proof: Why We Are Impatient Optimists,” they showed lawmakers and foreign policy experts something that rarely makes the global health news: success. I encourage you to watch the presentation—it’s both moving and inspirational.

Bill and Melinda’s speech is part of The Living Proof Project: U.S. Investments in Global Health Are Working, a campaign to share success stories from the field and put a human face on the millions of lives that have been saved and transformed through U.S. government investments in global health.

Take the story of Grace Ngoto, who delivered her baby girl two months early in Malawi. Thanks to the Kangaroo Mother Care program supported by USAID, Grace’s child was able to thrive despite being born premature in one of the world’s least developed countries. Grace now teaches other mothers about Kangaroo Mother Care and protecting newborns from hypothermia and infection. Grace and her daughter are Living Proof that investments in global health are changing the world.

I know that when Americans hear about Grace’s little girl and the millions of other lives saved by U.S. government investments in global health, they’ll be eager to do more. I hope that you’ll help us get the word out. Visit the Living Proof website to see more personal stories and data from the field, and then share what you’ve learned with someone else in your community, whether it’s your elected representative, your next-door neighbor, or your Twitter followers.

Spread the word: U.S. investments in global health are working.

UN Photo/Evan Schneider