Melinda Gates: ‘Championing Investments for Women and Girls.’

Melinda Gates is the most powerful woman philanthropist on the planet. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is working to bring access to high-quality contraceptive information, services, and supplies to 120 million women and girls in the poorest countries by 2020 without coercion or discrimination, with a long-term goal of universal access to voluntary family planning.

As a leader in ‘Venture Philanthropy,’ Melinda Gates has inspired other big donors and changed the way funders think of philanthropy. Most of her investments are now in women and girls around the world, funneling $80 million for collecting key data on women in developing countries providing information Gates believes is needed to inform efforts to achieve gender equality.

As stated in the foundation’s fact sheet, “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. In the United States, it seeks to ensure that all people—especially those with the fewest resources—have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life.”

Amongst the many initiatives that the foundation takes, is their strategy for voluntary family planning enabling women to make informed decisions, a vital component of global health and development.

In a recent article in the UK newspaper ‘Independent’ titled ‘ Melinda Gates: “Contraceptives are ‘anti-poverty innovation’ and Donald Trump’s foreign aid cuts are hurting millions of women,”’ Independent UK Gates .  Gates states the following: “”As the debate over cutting funding for development assistance continues, we will be asked whether we believe that investing in developing countries and the women and girls who live there is worth it,” she wrote in an article for the USA Today newspaper. “I hope you will insist that it is.”

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was founded by Bill and Melinda Gates and is the largest, most transparently operated private foundation in the world. Melinda Gates, along with her husband Bill Gates, preside over an endowment of more than $39 billion.

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