Gates to U.S.: Global Health Aid Is Not Doom-and-Gloom
FrontLines - December-January 2009-10
When Bill and Melinda Gates
visited health projects around
the world—not just their own
projects but those of USAID and
other U.S.-funded groups—they
met people who had overcome
disease and hunger and gone on
to improve their lives.
But when they returned home
to the United States, all they saw
in the news were doom-andgloom
reports of epidemics, famine,
failed programs, and misery.
So in 2009, the Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation launched
the Living Proof Project to tell
positive stories of U.S. foreign
assistance that rarely make the
evening news or the front page
of newspapers.
The Living Proof Project runs
video clips on its Web site that are
not only about Gates projects but
about USAID and other groups
funded by the U.S. government or
private donations. These include
the President’s Emergency Plan
for AIDS Relief, the U.N. Global
Fund, and the President’s Malaria
Initiative. A short ad campaign
also ran on television.
“Living Proof is a multimedia
communications effort that uses
the power of individual stories to
show the success of investments
made by America to developing
countries for global health,” said
Cyndi Lewis, senior program
officer in global health at the
Gates Foundation.
The project began with a two-year
investigation into American attitudes towards foreign aid,
using polling and focus groups.
“Americans have the perception
that projects that USAID
and the Global Fund and even
Gates take on are insurmountable,”
Lewis said in an interview
with FrontLines.
“We listened to many regular
and influential Americans, and
what we heard was a lack of
reporting on progress—lack of
connection to individuals. But
that’s not what you see in the
field where there is so much
progress and results.”
So the Living Proof Project
worked with USAID and other aid
groups in its first year of operation
“to get compelling stories on individuals
and whole regions—not
just lives saved but improved and
empowered,” Lewis said.
Positive stories can be compelling
if they focus on heroic figures
who overcame terrible problems.
Lewis points to the “Barbershop”
video from the Living Proof Project
Web site as an example.
“There is a power in storytelling
that goes beyond huge numbers
saved—these don’t stick as
well as when people learn of a
woman living with HIV/AIDS in
Ethiopia who is not just surviving
but thriving—she is a barber
and teaches customers AIDS
prevention,” she said.
“We learned Americans want
to hear these stories—not just
hear a number of lives saved.”
The Gates Foundation felt that
“the success of global health is an
untold story in America,” said
Lewis, from the eradication of smallpox in 1977—which saved America $17 billion in vaccination costs—to progress against polio, malaria, and the current fight for maternal and newborn child health.
The big challenge has been how to make people pay attention to positive news.
In the past, advocacy groups displayed photos of dying children and images of people living in dire and depressing circumstances to educate the public. “But when people invest year after year, tax and private donations, they want to know the return on investment,” said Lewis.
To overcome what Lewis called “a staggering communications gap,” the Living Proof Project tells about aid delivered through Gates; USAID; the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition; the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization; the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; and other programs.
See www.livingproofproject.org for further information.
★
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