PolioPlus Partners

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation $100 Million Challenge Grant

Bill Gates, cofounder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, gives a baby the oral polio vaccine at the Shadnagar community health clinic in Andhra Pradesh, India, in 2002.

“This is a historic moment in Rotary’s history. A new partnership has been forged between Rotary International and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to provide a much-needed Us $200 Million toward our priority goal of a polio-free Word”

What Are The Terms Of The Grant?

The Gates Foundation has awarded The Rotary Foundation a $100 million grant, which Rotary will match, dollar-for-dollar, over three years. It is the largest grant ever given to a volunteer service organization and represents a tremendous validation of the approach and success of our PolioPlus program.

Rotary has committed to raising $100 million of new funds over a three-year period beginning January 1, 2008. Rotary’s new PolioPlus fundraising effort will be formally launched 1 July 2008 and be completed 31 December 2010. This is Rotary’s response to the Gates challenge grant. why is more funding for polio eradication required?

At a February 2007 meeting of all polio eradication stakeholders, the director-general of the World Health Organization noted that an urgent injection of additional funding for polio eradication activities was required to reach the eradication goal. Over the past several years, polio eradication efforts have intensified by increasing the number of supplementary immunization activities in the polio-endemic, high-risk, and importation countries. India, for example, is conducting immunization activities almost monthly in some areas and reaching tens of millions of children during each activity. This increased effort requires additional resources.

In 1985, Rotary promised every child a world free from the threat of polio, and we are almost there. This funding agreement between Rotary and the Gates Foundation is a huge step forward, bringing us even closer to our ultimate goal of eradicating polio. We have the technical tools to do it, and now we must complete the job.

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