Today’s Wall Street Journal had the story on the Gates
Foundation gift of $650 million in 1999 to a campaign for childhood
inoculation.
I have long thought this was a good piece of charitable work. I was wrong.
It looks like the Gates money was ineffective. Sadly ineffective.
In the past five years the program has given 42 million
shots for hep B and 12 million shots for childhood related diseases. That is pathetic.
That amount of money should have delivered 500 million shots
if done with political skill and effective cooperation with local governments
and NGOs. Most governments have every
reason to provide inoculation and few reasons not to. The Gates people must
have stepped on the wrong toes, gotten a bad reputation and done a few other
things wrong.
Some things went badly amiss. Clearly the Gates people don’t know what they are doing. Even worse than not knowing what they are doing, they’ve conned Gates into giving the same amount again for an extension of the same project.