The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Gates Foundation

  • Gates Foundation to host 200 SDGs leaders in Johannesburg

    •Femi Kuti, Beyonce, Jay-Z to perform at Mandela concert

    TWO hundred emerging leaders from Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa and other African countries will gather in Johannesburg, South Africa this weekend to discuss progress being made on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the Goalkeepers Conference.

    The Goalkeepers are people working towards the implementation of the SDGs in their various communities.

    The conference, holding Saturday for the first time in Africa courtesy of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, will feature speakers such as Graça Machel, United Nations (UN) Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed; President of Global Policy and Advocacy at the Gates Foundation Mark Suzman and actor, director and philanthropist Tyler Perry alongside young leaders, including Minister of Investment Trade and Industry, Botswana Bogolo Kenewendo  and Chief Innovation Officer, Govt of Sierra Leone David Moinina Sengeh.

    A statement by the organisers also noted that Johannesburg will also host the Global Citizens Concert on Sunday to commemorate Nelson Mandela’s post-humous 100th year birthday at the FNB Stadium.

    Music stars like Beyonce, Jay-Z and Femi Kuti are expected to perform

    at the concert.

    Goalkeepers was launched by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2017 in partnership with Project Everyone to accelerate progress towards the global goals, using powerful stories, data and partnerships to highlight progress achieved.

    It was also design to hold governments accountable and bring together a new generation of leaders to address world major challenges.

    The U.S. event is hosted by Bill and Melinda Gates and takes place annually alongside the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).

     

  • Gates Foundation, Dangote, govt to fight malnutrition

    The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Aliko Dangote Foundation and the Federal Government are collaborating to fight acute malnutrition in Nigeria by engaging food processors and regulatory agencies on prioritising food fortification.

    At a forum in Lagos, both foundations, the Federal Government and food processors signed a communique to boost enforcement of regulations; integrate food fortification as key performance indicator, incorporate framework evaluation and provide technical solution for sustainable production.

    Present are Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo; Minister of State, Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment Hajia Aisha Abubakar; Director, Nutrition and Global Development, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Shawn Baker; President, Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote; BUA’s Group President, Abdul-Samad Rabiu; among other leading processors

    Abubakar, speaking on the agreement, said the essential benefits of food fortification were enormous and crucial to resolving health challenges in the nation’s minority population.

    She pledged that the Federal Government will work towards making the operating environment for processors less tedious.

    “This meeting was to ensure that everybody is on board. We had a meeting with the CEOs to ensure that they will commit to ensuring that they fortify their products and government will also commit to making sure that whatever challenge they have in the industry which is basically the cost of nutrients and that government is able to do something to reduce their cost of production,” she said.

    According to Baker, the Gates Foundation will increase its focus on providing technical support to industries with the backing of Technoserve, an international development agency contracted by it to implement a project on Strengthening African Processors of Fortified Foods (SAPFF).

    Support will also be given to government agencies to stifle regulations on unwholesome practices in the country.

    He said: “We have actually been working on a large scale of food fortification over 15 years because after when you think about malnutrition, you think about a child on the street but a more huge problem are deficiencies in essential vitamins and minerals or immune functions which can lead to death, they can lead to birth defects.

    ‘’But food fortification is almost a miraculous way you can help resolve that by adding to commonly consumed food in the case of Nigeria, Salt, flour cooking oil and sugar.

    ‘’The industries represented at the dialogue represents over 70 per cent of the market of all of those foods consumed by Nigerian households every day by effectively putting in those nutrients to ensuring that mums and kids are getting many of the essential nutrients.”

    The Managing Director, PZ Wilmar West Africa, Mr Santoshi Pillai, promised that processing procedures will be made to align with global best practices to win the fight against malnutrition.

    According to him, it is imperative industries and private sector partner to address key themes of understanding malnutrition and how it can be resolved in terms of food fortification.

    “Education of Nigerian consumers, lack of compliance, the role of Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON), National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) in ensuring that there is compliance will be our focus. In terms of cost, there is an assumption that food fortification is very costly. So we discussed that we should bring the cost of these items down and then we discussed that we should look at the government reducing tariffs.”

     

  • Gates foundation urges stakeholders to address population growth

    Gates foundation urges stakeholders to address population growth

    • Says it is essential to address economic, social challenges

    Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) has called for the need to look into the issues of rapid population growth in Nigeria.

    While not calling for a legislation for birth control, Dr Mairo Mandara, Country Director of the Foundation said the country might need to declare an emergency on the population with a view to improving the quality of health of the people.

    Nigeria is currently the seventh (7th) largest population in the world, with the predictions to become the third largest population by 2050 if the rate of growth is not checked. 

    With two and a half percent share of world population, Mandara noted that Nigeria is responsible for ten percent of global maternal death at 576/100,000 live birth according to 2013 National Demographic Health Survey.

    To this, she said the knowledge of family planning is essential; stressing, however, said that the issue of the number of children a family should have still remains a personal decision. 

    The Country Director who gave a keynote address to mark the one week 2017 World Population Day with the theme “Family planning, birth spacing: empowering people, developing nations” said: ” for Nigeria, child spacing and family planning are essential for improving the lives of women and children and preventing maternal mortality.

    “Family Planning is essential in addressing the focal and economic challenges, social problems and health issues, so much so that it may necessitate declaring emergency if possible to address the emerging multi-challenges of high maternal mortality ratio, high child mortality rate, civil unrest, poor amenities in schools and social services for rapidly increasing population.” 

    She further added: ” Nigeria houses the 7th largest population in the world and predictions potation her to become the 3rd in 33 years from now if the current annual growth rate of 3.2 percent prevails. 

    “The population age structure is pyramidal with a very large cohort of children at the base. Women constitute almost half of the total population of which those in their reproductive years represent 50 percent of the entire female population. 11 percent of the females are adolescents age 15-19 years and 23 percent of these girls have already commenced motherhood.”

    While also acknowledging that the knowledge of family planning in the country is very high, she, however, said the practice of modern family planning still remains very low. 

    Mandara stressed that using modern family planning method helps ” to time and space pregnancies in an effective way to improve pregnancy outcomes and allows couples to realise their desired number of children.

    “Family planning is a life-saving intervention and one the core pillars of safe because among others it saves women’s lives.”

    She further stressed that any amount spent on family planning will yield economic and other gains that can propel development forward and are thus critical to the success of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

    “Thus, investing in family planning is investing in the health and rights of women and couples worldwide. These investments also yield economic and other gains that can propel development forward and thus critical to the success of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development.

    Also, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Country Director, Dr Diene Keita said some 20 million women in the country lack access to safe and effective family planning methods.

    Keita who was represented by Mr Osaretin Adorni stressed that “fulfilling their unmet demands would save lives by averting 750,000 unintended pregnancies and reducing by one-third the estimated 40,000 annual maternal deaths.”

    The country director hereby pledged that UNFPA “has set an ambitious transformative goal to eliminate all unmet demand for family planning by 2039.”

  • Gates Foundation spends bulk of agric grants in rich countries

    Most of the $3billionb (£1.8billion) that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has given to benefit hungry people in the world’s poorest countries has been spent in the United States, Britain and other rich countries, with only around 10 per cent  spent in Africa, new research suggests.

    Analysis of grants made by the foundation shows that nearly half the money awarded over the past decade went to global agriculture research networks, as well as organisations, including the World Bank and United Nation agencies, and groups that work in Africa to promote hi-tech farming.

    The other $1.5billion went to hundreds of research and development organisations across the world, according to Grain, a research group based in Barcelona.

    “Here, over 80 per cent of the grants were given to organisations in the US and Europe, and only 10 per cent  to groups in Africa. By far the main recipient country is the US, followed by the UK, Germany and the Netherlands,” it says in a report.

    Of the $678million given to universities and national research centres, 79 per cent  went to the US and Europe, and only 12 per cent  to Africa.

    “The north-south divide is most shocking, however, when we look at the $669million given to non-government groups for agriculture work.