Economic crisis mustn't eclipse battle against poverty, says Bill Gates

Les Roopanarine

Bill Gates: ‘economic crisis mustn’t overshadow poverty battle’ Link to this video
Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist, has urged national governments not to allow fiscal concerns to overshadow the need for continued investment in the developing world.
“There are many things going on in terms of the eurozone crisis and budget cutbacks that would make it easy to turn inward and reduce financing,” Gates told an audience of international development experts and students at the London School of Economics on Tuesday.
“The answer is to remind people not only about the needs of the very poorest but also that we are making incredible progress in … the daily battle that is poverty.”
Gates, the co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, outlined his vision for tackling global poverty in an address that echoed the central themes of his fourth annual letter, published this week.
Gates highlighted the negative impact of food price rises and enlarged on his belief that innovative strategies on agriculture and health – areas he believes are closely interrelated – hold the key to development’s future.
“Agriculture really affects the poorest,” said Gates. “Most of the poor are people with very small farms who barely grow enough to feed their families. In tough years, they are extremely malnourished.
“So health ties very closely to agriculture. The reason why kids die of diarrhoea and pneumonia is because their bodies aren’t very strong. If they had proper nutrition, the death rate would be dramatically lower.”
Gates’ emphasis on the need for greater investment in agricultural research reflected the contents of his annual letter, where the possibility that scientific advances in the understanding of plant genes might lead to new methods of tackling human diseases is among a range of ideas touched upon.
In his speech at the LSE, the Microsoft billionaire also argued for a nexus between food shortages and poor performance on other development indicators, such as education.
He said: “[For many people] the central fact of existence is ‘Can I get enough food?’ That takes away from ‘Can I send my kids to school?’ or ‘Can I pay school fees?’ as well as many other things.
“We’re holding back poor countries, not just by the death rate but by the sickness and lack of development that those children suffer.”
Gates was speaking at an event organised by the Global Poverty Project, a campaign group that has just launched a new initiative aimed at heightening awareness of poverty at community level.
More than 100 ambassadors from across the UK have been selected for the project, which is supported by the Gates Foundation.
They will undertake a two-day training course, either at the London School of Economics or in Edinburgh, which will teach them how to deliver a presentation locally about the complexities of poverty entitled 1.4 Billion Reasons.
For Gates, the attraction of the project lies in its accent on youth and the common ground it shares with the work of his foundation.
“The message of my fourth annual letter is identical to what the Global Poverty Project is all about – that is, that it’s very easy to lose sight of the conditions of the very poorest,” said Gates.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum summit in the Swiss resort of Davos on Wednesday morning, Gates reiterated his call for continued aid investment in the developing world despite the unfavourable global econcomic climate.
He underlined his rallying cry by revealing that the Gates Foundation has pledged $750m to the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
“We’re making a new commitment in a somewhat special form that we’ve worked out with the Global Fund, in the form of a promissory note,” said Gates. “It’s a commitment of an additional $750m.
“It frees up funds for the Global Fund so that they can immediately use the money and continue to save lives.”
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Mutual Funds Invest in Brazilian Online Deals Company

SÃO PAULO, Brazil — Peixe Urbano, Brazil’s first online daily deal company, has closed a series C round of financing with mutual funds and institutional accounts managed by Morgan Stanley Investment Management and T. Rowe Price Associates. General Atlantic and Tiger Global Management, who had previously backed the company, also participated. The size of investment was not disclosed.
Julio Vasconcellos, Peixe Urbano’s chief executive and co-founder, told DealBook in an interview that the new capital would be used to finance research and development and product development. He said the company, based in Rio de Janeiro, planned to develop new features and seek to improve the daily deal business model, including a push into local e-commerce.
Mr. Vasconcellos says Peixe Urbano also plans to hire engineers and fill out its senior leadership team.
The site started in March 2010, when Brazil had no daily deal market.
Its founders, Mr. Vasconcellos, Emerson Andrade and Alex Tabor, met while at Stanford University.
Early investors in the company are Chamath Palihapitiya, Benchmark Capital and Monashees Capital, based in São Paulo. Matt Cohler of Benchmark and Eric Acher of Monashees continue to serve on Peixe Urbano’s board of directors.
The company has grown rapidly in its brief history. It says that by the end of 2010, in its first nine months, it had sold two million coupons and employed 270 people. By early this month, it had sold roughly 12 million coupons and had 1,000 employees. It has also expanded in Latin America, and is now present in more then 80 cities.
Brazil’s daily deal market initially exploded following Peixe Urbano’s founding. More than 2,000 similar sites developed, according to Guilherme Stocco, vice president of business development at the Buscapé Company, which owns intelligence-gathering units.
The market has since experienced a significant correction: there are now just 1,000 sites, and only 300 generate revenue.
While Peixe Urbano does not disclose its revenue, Mr. Stocco told DealBook that in 2011 the total daily deal market in Brazil was about $843 million. He says the top three companies — Peixe Urbano, Groupon and Click On — have been running neck and neck in the market’s brief history. The top three sites account for 40 percent of total market revenue, he said, while the top eight account for 70 percent.
Mr. Stocco said that while there had been a lot of consolidation, “the market is still growing,” adding that “the companies doing well are picking up business from those that failed.”
Benchmark’s Mr. Cohler said in an interview that he continued to see an “unbounded upside” to Peixe Urbano’s growth.
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Her tuition solution

Photo by James Keivom/New York Daily News

John Jay College student Angy Rivera, an undocumented collegian who doesn’t qualify for federal aid or loans, is going online to raise tuition money by selling $5 “education bracelets.”

John Jay College student Angy Rivera doesn’t have a green card — and that means she doesn’t qualify for federal financial aid or loans to help with $2,565 in tuition a semester.
Like some other undocumented students around the country, she’s turned to the Internet to raise the money so she can stay in school.
Using Facebook or the website Chipin.com, they are coming out as undocumented and asking for help, often selling something homemade in exchange for donations.
“At 3 yrs old I became undocumented in the United States,” Rivera, 21, posted on her Chipin page, where she sells handmade “education bracelets” for $5.
“Often times it’s hard to ask for help, but now, I’m asking you to place a donation that will help me continue my education.”
Tuition hikes forced her to cut back to part-time. “The few scholarships that I did receive only paid off a semester or two,” she said.
The Colombian-born criminology student has raised only $60 of a $1,000 goal, but some of the money has come from perfect strangers.
New York allows undocumented students to pay in-state tuition rates, but state and federal aid is off-limits. The Board of Regents is pushing to open New York’s Tuition Assistance Program to all students.
Students around the country are in similar straits and turning to Chipin.
In Florida, Juan Escalante, 22, raised $1,000 by sending, “I am undocumented” T-shirts to those who donated $25.
He was able to make his final tuition payment and graduate from Florida State University in Tallahassee last month.
Texas A&M student Jose Luis Zelaya crochets and sells beanie hats, and has gotten so good he thinks he can break the Guinness World Record for most stitches per minute.
He’s sold about $1,000 worth through a Facebook page.
When he was 13, Zelaya left a life on the streets in Honduras to join his mom in Houston.
Last month, he was chosen to give the invocation at his graduation. Now, he’s in an education master’s program.
“It is a pretty heavy burden, but I have been able to do it so far,” said Zelaya, 24. “A lot of people are impressed that I’m a guy and that I’m making beanies for a good cause.”
epearson@nydailynews.com

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Phillippine external debts on the rise

Manila (Philippine Daily Inquirer/ANN) – The Philippines’ outstanding debts to foreign creditors rose as of the end of September as both the government and corporate entities continued to tap the external markets for financing.
Data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP or Central Bank of the Philippines) showed that the country’s outstanding external debt amounted to US$62.4 billion by the end of the third quarter, up by 4.4 percent from $59.7 billion as of the same period in 2010.
The BSP said in a report that the increase was due to the fact that fresh loans tapped offshore exceeded the liabilities that were paid.
On a quarter-on-quarter basis, the latest amount of external debt was up by 1.6 percent from $61.4 billion.
Despite the increase in the absolute amount of liabilities, the BSP said the Philippines was able to improve on its capability to meet its obligations.
This is because the country’s resources grew faster than its liabilities.
For instance, the BSP said, the country’s external debt-to-GDP (gross domestic product) ratio improved to 28.4 percent by the end of September from 31.3 percent in the same period in 2010.
Moreover, the proportion of the external debt to the country’s export revenues and remittances likewise fell to 8.3 percent from 8.8 percent over the same period.
“Major external debt indicators remained at comfortable levels,” BSP Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. said in a statement.
He said the improving debt ratios of the Philippines should send a positive signal about the country’s improving credit-worthiness.
The Philippines, which is rated one to two notches below investment grade by major ratings agencies, is hoping for another rating upgrade in 2012.
Early this year, the Philippines enjoyed an upgrade of its credit rating by Moody’s from three to two notches below investment grade. Fitch raised the country’s rating from two to one notch below investment grade.
The BSP also cited the country’s growing reserves of foreign exchange, which it said further indicated its ability to service its obligations to foreign creditors.
The gross international reserves stood at $75.2 billion by end-September, which was 7.3 times the country’s foreign debts maturing within the short term.
The BSP said the country’s foreign exchange reserves have been more comfortable than the minimum indicated by international benchmark. According to this benchmark, reserves are comfortable if these are equal to its debts maturing within the short term.

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