Contact Details
Headquarters Jeff Raikes
Chief Executive Officer
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation PO Box 23350
Seattle, WA98102
www.gatesfoundation.org TEL: Jeff Raikes
Point of reference at ECA; Office of the Executive Secretary (OES) Tel: +251 115 511231/+251 115 443336
1. Areas of Interest
Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, it focuses on improving people's health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty.
The Foundation has focus on areas with the potential for high-impact, sustainable solutions that can reach hundreds of millions of people. They work closely with partners to support innovative approaches and expand existing ones so they reach the people who need them most.
In the agricultural development sector, the Foundation assist small farmers to boost their productivity, increase their incomes, and build better lives for their families.
The Foundation special initiatives of focus are:
• Education
• Water, Sanitation, & Hygiene
• Urban Poverty
• Emergency Relief
The Foundation Global Health Program harnesses advances in science and technology to save lives in poor countries. It is focus on the health problems that have a major impact in developing countries but get too little attention and funding. The Foundation supports sustainable ways to improve Health Program delivery and also they invest in research and development of new interventions, such as vaccines, drugs, and diagnostics.
The work in infectious diseases focuses on developing ways to fight and prevent enteric and diarrheal diseases, HIV/AIDS, malaria, pneumonia, tuberculosis, and neglected and other infectious diseases.
The Foundation also work on integrated health solutions for family planning, nutrition, maternal, neonatal and child health, tobacco control and vaccine-preventable diseases.
ECA Partners Profiles 2010
The foundation's Libraries programme is moving toward the day where every person, regardless of income, education or geographic location, can get free public access to digital information and computer technology.
2. History and co-operation with ECA
There has been no co-operation with ECA to date.
3. General Information
Overview: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was created in January of 2000, through the merger of the Gates Learning Foundation, which focused on expanding access to technology through public libraries, and the William H. Gates Foundation, which focused on improving global health.
The foundation is dedicated to improving people's lives by sharing advances in health and learning with the global community.
Led by Bill Gates' father, William H. Gates, Sr., and JefFRaikes, the Seattle-based foundation has an endowment of approximately US$ 33.5 billion. At the end of its 2008 financial year, the foundation's assets stood at US$ 38.9 billion with total grant making of US$ 3.0 billion in 2008.
The Foundation employs approximately 818 individuals. Since its inception the Foundation has committed US$22.61 billion in grants. Internationally it supports works in more than 100 countries.
Previously, grants have been committed in various areas of focus. Some well noted examples are:
expanding childhood immunization $1.5 billion, improving seeds and soil for African farmers
-$456 million, polio eradication - $355 million, saving Newborn Lives - $112 million, increasing small farmer income - $66 million, helping small coffee farmers improve crops and fetch higher prices - $47 million, a coalition of countries from the developing world making savings accounts, insurance, and other financial services available to people living on less than $2 a day - $35 million, testing and promoting the use of information and communications technologies to deliver microfinance products - $24 million, multiple library systems - $16.4 million, developing and expanding a network of commercial banks in Africa - $15.4 million.
The Foundation's fiscal year is 1 January to 31 December.
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Ireland
Contact Details
Headquarters Embassy in Ethiopia Representative
Irish Aid
Irish Aid is the Government of Ireland's programme of assistance to developing countries. Ireland has had an official development assistance programme since 1974. It has grown steadily over the years from modest beginnings to its current size (total ODA in 2010 is estimated to be €671.4 million).
Ireland's development cooperation policy is an integral part of Ireland's wider foreign policy. Its aid philosophy is rooted in its foreign policy, in particular its objectives of peace and justice. Its development cooperation policy and programme reflect its longstanding commitment to human rights and fairness in international relations and are inseparable from Irish foreign policy as a whole.
The Irish Aid programme has as its absolute priority the reduction of poverty, inequality and exclusion in developing countries. Irish Aid works in cooperation with governments in other countries, other donors, NGOs and international organisations as part of the global effort to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs, and the specific targets set to enable their achievement to be measured, provide the context in which Irish Aid priority sectors are decided. These include education, health, agriculture and food security, water and sanitation, infrastructure and roads, trade, and good governance. Each sector represents a means of addressing a core cause of poverty; however, as the causes of poverty are interwoven to such a degree that one cannot be tackled in isolation from the others, a comprehensive and cross-sectoral approach is crucial, if a real and sustainable reduction in poverty is to be effected. Recognizing this, Irish Aid's programme incorporates cross-sectoral strategies on gender, governance, HIV/AIDS, and the environment into all of its development activities.
2. History and co-operation with ECA
There has been no co-operation between ECA and the Irish Government to date.
ECA Partners Profiles 2010
3. Geographic concentration of development assistance
Since its inception in 1974, the Irish Aid programme has had a strong geographic focus on Sub-Saharan Africa. Approximately 80% of Ireland's Overseas Development Aid goes to Africa. Under the bilateral part of its programme, Irish Aid operates intensive and wide-ranging country programmes in six countries in Africa, namely Lesotho, Mozambique, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Zambia, and Uganda.
Malawi became Ireland's seventh programme country in Africa.
Timor-Leste and Vietnam, both in Asia, are Ireland's remaining programme countries.
4. Economic Data
Economy overview: Ireland is a small, modern, trade-dependent economy. Ireland joined 11 other EU nations in circulating the euro on 1 January 2002.
Ireland is one of the most open economies in the world. In terms of exports as a % of GDP, Ireland ranks as the 3rd biggest exporting country in the Euro-Zone. It is a significant global player in both the pharmaceutical and commercial services industries. As well as being the European hub for major ICT companies such as Microsoft, Google and Intel, nine of the top ten global pharmaceutical firms have a major regional presence in Ireland.
Ireland is ranked 7th out of 181 economies for ease of doing business by the World Bank in its Doing Business Report 2009. It has a highly skilled and highly educated labour force, particularly in terms of science, mathematics and computing.
During the period 1995-2007, Ireland's GDP growth averaged 6%. Following this period of strong growth, 2008 and 2009 proved to be extremely challenging for Ireland. Domestic pressure in the Irish economy, particularly the ongoing correction in the construction sector, compounded the deterioration in international economic conditions. GDP is estimated to have contracted by 7.5%
in 2009, and is projected to contract by 1.25% in 2010. Unemployment increased in 2009 and is forecast to peak at around 13% in 2010.
Ireland's strategy for economic growth is based on restoring economic competitiveness through fiscal and incomes policy, arresting the deterioration in the public finances and restoring Government expenditure and revenue to more sustainable levels.
The small Irish economy is very flexible with a track record of fast adjustment. The Irish Government has set out a multi-annual framework to reduce the General Government deficit to less than 3% of GDP by 2014. Ireland's approach to addressing its budgetary difficulties has met with the approval of the EU, the OEGE and the IME Significant action has been taken on expenditure and taxation to restore sustainability to the public finances. During 2008 and 2009, adjustments designed to yield about 5% of GDP were introduced. The measures included broadening the tax base, reducing the public sector pay bill, including by reducing income of civil servants, and strictly containing expenditure across Government Ministries. The 2010 Budget again focused on reducing public expenditure and delivered an adjustment of a further 2.5% of GDP. Wage and price levels are
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adjusting, thereby improving Ireland's competitiveness. Ireland's exports are holding up reasonably well, underpinned by growth in sectors such as pharmaceuticals and chemicals.
Ireland's debt level will rise over the coming years, but it was relatively low to begin with. General Government Debt is end-2009 was some 65% of GDP, below the euro area average of 78% of GDP.
Government action in response to the financial crisis has included the establishment in 2009 of the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) to remove the riskiest assets from the banks' balance sheets thereby facilitating the flow of credit to viable businesses.
GDP: Purchasing power parity - US$177 billion (2009 est.)
GDP: per capita - US$42,400 (2009 est.) Budget:
Revenues: US$74.82billion
Expenditures: US$104.6 billion (2009 est.)
Economic aid:
ODAJGN1: 0.52% (2009)
Amount: €796 million ($1,137 million) Currency: Euro (EUR)
Fiscal year: Calendar year
ECA Partners Profiles 2010
Point of reference at ECA: Office of the Executive Secretary (OES) Tel: +251 115 511231/+251 115 443336
1. Areas of Interest