4 breakthroughs for a world without poverty

That Big Bet is that the lives of people in poor countries will
improve faster over the next 15 years than at any other time in
human history – and their lives will improve more than anyone
else’s during that period.
Four breakthroughs
It’s a bold prediction, especially at a time when several of the
world’s poorest countries remain so heavily burdened by
disease, civil strife, food scarcity, and other grave challenges.
How can the world win this bet? With breakthroughs in four
crucial areas: health, agriculture, the financial sector, and
education.
The driver of these breakthroughs may be summed up in a single
word – innovation.
We live at a time when innovation, of all kinds, is both
accelerating and becoming more accessible.
As Bill and Melinda Gates note, agricultural information is
reaching more and more African farmers by mobile phone,
allowing them to receive up-to-the-minute weather and market
data.
Meanwhile, rapidly improving electronic-learning systems will
give students from Nairobi to Nashville access to world-class
lectures and educational software – and will allow teachers to
focus on more intensive, individualized instruction.
Innovations in partnership
But the breakthrough innovations are not only technological –
they are also organizational.
One such innovation is the public-private partnership.
Agreements between companies, government agencies, and
philanthropic foundations can result in funding streams that
reduce market risks and unleash the unique innovative capacities
of the business sector on behalf of the world’s poorest people.
We have recently seen such partnerships make solid
contributions in global health, such as the candidate Ebola
vaccine that GSK is developing in partnership with a consortium
of governmental and non-profit entities.
Another example is bKash, a Bangladeshi company that provides
mobile financial services. Our foundation has made grants to
bKash to help it expand its mobile-payment platform and
mitigate market risks.
These partnerships epitomize innovative thinking to me. They
will serve as powerful catalysts for further innovations that will
deliver life-altering breakthroughs for the people that need them
most.
Winning the bet
The results will be historic. Africa will be able to feed itself. The
outright elimination of an entire disease – an undertaking so
difficult that it has happened only once so far – could happen
again, multiple times, in the decade-and-a-half to come.
In short, Bill and Melinda Gates see a future in which humanity’s
rapidly growing capabilities allow us to address some of our
most intractable challenges. I find this both ambitious and
credible.
Let’s do all we can to make these breakthroughs, win this bet,
and seize the historic opportunities before us