Gates: Foundation to invest $5B in Africa over next 5 years

“The newest vaccines that protect children from two of the most devastating diseases – pneumonia and severe diarrhea – are reaching children across Africa at the same time they’re available for children in wealthier countries”.

“We must clear the obstacles for young people…if we invest in the right things and ensure that the basic needs of Africa’s young people are taken care of, they will have the ability to change the future”, he said.

He said Africa’s youth should be given a chance to grow and get a better education as this was fundamental to the continent’s overall development.

“As a boy I learned about him Mandela in school”.

“Other countries in the region will do well to follow South Africa’s example and provide the highest level university education to the largest number of qualified students”, he said. “The youth are special source of dynamism”, he said.

Gates added that one topic with Nelson Mandela was the power of the youth, which is one reason why he was optimistic about the future of Africa.

“If they are not educated well, their minds will lie dormant”. If they do not have access to economic opportunities, they will not be able to achieve their goals. And the inequities that have kept people apart will be erased by broad-based progress that is the very meaning of the words: “living together”.

He said on a subsequent trip to Johannesburg, specifically to Soweto, and prompted the founding of the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.

“By 2050, 40 percent of the world’s children will live on this continent”, Gates said.

Every year, the Nelson Mandela Foundation organizes a lecture series, which offers prominent leaders a platform to address thorny social issues. other leaders that have previously talked at the lecture include former USA president Bill Clinton, former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Michelle Bachelet, the first female president of Chile.