On June 8 governments and aid organisations held a Nutrition Summit in London where they signed a global compact to tackle hunger. The compact will seek to ensure at least 500 million pregnant women and children benefit from nutrition interventions; prevent at least 20 million children under the age of five from stunted growth; and save at least 1.7m lives by reducing stunting, increasing breastfeeding, and treating severe acute malnutrition. These interventions are targeted at poor countries, most of them in Africa.

Mr. Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, spoke at the London summit where he announced committing additional funds towards enhancing nutrition and agriculture in developing countries. Two days after the London summit, Mr. Gates spoke exclusively to Daily Trust by telephone, giving further insight into the goals of the summit and what it has achieved. He also spoke on what the Gates Foundation is doing to help Nigeria develop its agricultural sector.

Excerpts:

What would you say is the most significant achievement of the nutrition summit that you attended in London?

The goal of the summit was to both bring attention to the challenge of nutrition and to bring new resources for that effort. And to talk about how improving agriculture sector can help nutrition, focusing on specific things that can be done to help children's nutrition and the huge negative effect that not giving that nutrition to kids has, both the extra deaths because kids die of diarrhoea and pneumonia if they are not well fed, and then the fact that even if they survive, their brains don't fully develop, and what a tragedy that is for them and to the country.

We had a lot of experts there. The Gates Foundation committed new resources, the United Kingdom committed a lot more resources, Earth Foundation, Children's Investment Fund Foundation committed new resources. So, people coming together to talk about nutrition and agriculture.

How much money has the Gates Foundation committed to this effort?

We committed on the nutrition side $100 million extra between now and 2020, beyond what we've been spending, and on the agriculture side we committed $300 million new beyond what we've been spending.

What is your reaction to the criticism by the African civil society that this alliance on nutrition is simply a new wave of colonialism that will stifle smallholder farmers?

Well, giving nutrition to young children so they don't die seems like a universal value to us. The president of Nigeria gave a great speech about how millions Nigerian children over the years will die unnecessarily unless we improve the health system and we improve the resources in that health system. And the leaders of the Nigerian health efforts like (Health Minister) Dr. Pate who is very capable has been very good at using expertise and resources to see how he can meet the president's promise of not letting Nigerian children die. So this is about saving lives.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201306131512.html

On June 8 governments and aid organisations held a Nutrition Summit in London where they signed a global compact to tackle hunger. The compact will seek to ensure at least 500 million pregnant women and children benefit from nutrition interventions; prevent at least 20 million children under the age of five from stunted growth; and save at least 1.7m lives by reducing stunting, increasing breastfeeding, and treating severe acute malnutrition. These interventions are targeted at poor countries, most of them in Africa.

Mr. Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, spoke at the London summit where he announced committing additional funds towards enhancing nutrition and agriculture in developing countries. Two days after the London summit, Mr. Gates spoke exclusively to Daily Trust by telephone, giving further insight into the goals of the summit and what it has achieved. He also spoke on what the Gates Foundation is doing to help Nigeria develop its agricultural sector. Excerpts:

What would you say is the most significant achievement of the nutrition summit that you attended in London?

The goal of the summit was to both bring attention to the challenge of nutrition and to bring new resources for that effort. And to talk about how improving agriculture sector can help nutrition, focusing on specific things that can be done to help children’s nutrition and the huge negative effect that not giving that nutrition to kids has, both the extra deaths because kids die of diarrhoea and pneumonia if they are not well fed, and then the fact that even if they survive, their brains don’t fully develop, and what a tragedy that is for them and to the country.

We had a lot of experts there. The Gates Foundation committed new resources, the United Kingdom committed a lot more resources, Earth Foundation, Children’s Investment Fund Foundation committed new resources. So, people coming together to talk about nutrition and agriculture.

How much money has the Gates Foundation committed to this effort?

We committed on the nutrition side $100 million extra between now and 2020, beyond what we’ve been spending, and on the agriculture side we committed $300 million new beyond what we’ve been spending.

What is your reaction to the criticism by the African civil society that this alliance on nutrition is simply a new wave of colonialism that will stifle smallholder farmers?

Well, giving nutrition to young children so they don’t die seems like a universal value to us. The president of Nigeria gave a great speech about how millions Nigerian children over the years will die unnecessarily unless we improve the health system and we improve the resources in that health system. And the leaders of the Nigerian health efforts like (Health Minister) Dr. Pate who is very capable has been very good at using expertise and resources to see how he can meet the president’s promise of not letting Nigerian children die. So this is about saving lives.

What are the Gates Foundation’s specific agriculture plans for Nigeria?

You may know that Akin Adesina, who is now the minister, worked in AGRA which is an organisation in Africa that the Gates Foundation is a strong backer of. And Dr. Akin was one of the people that was up in London and he has a very great programme for increasing productivity of Nigerian farmers. And we are involved in a number of projects, helping out with that. In making sure that new seeds become available, for example, with cassava that has been on our porgrammes. We are involved in helping Nigeria step up the regulatory safety review, so that they are taking advantage of latest techniques, and they have a really good safety review capability. So we have quite a few agricultural products. Because Nigeria is the biggest in Africa so almost everything we do we have some ways of doing our best to help Nigeria.

How much money is the Gates Foundation committing to agricultural development in Nigeria?

It’s very hard to categorise because we work on diseases for the whole continent and we work on new seeds for the whole continent. We are trying to benefit all the countries of Africa. AGRA has Nigeria as one of its focus programmes. The funding of the African Biosafety Network is actually there in Nigeria; some of the rice work is there in Nigeria; some of its bio-cassava work has been in Nigeria. So it will be hard to come up with an exact figure because it’s all across. Our agriculture strategy overall is about $400 million in a year of which about half is focused on Africa.

The (Nigerian) president created a group of experts to consult on Nigerian agriculture, and our foundation went to that meeting last year where we discussed how to increase rice productivity, how to improve processing and hopefully have Nigeria meet more of its own needs. When I talked to Adesina on Saturday he talked about this dry season rice and how that was really growing and it was a big thing, and it’s starting a significant increase in proportion of Nigeria’s rice production domestically.

Given the corruption levels in Nigeria, do you have any concerns that corruption could affect some of the investments the foundation is making in Nigeria?

We invest in helping get the primary healthcare system fixed so that the kids in Nigeria get their routine immunisation. We invest in the polio campaign because we are very close to eradication and Nigeria is one of the three last and we are making some progress; we just committed a huge amount of money to the final campaign. One thing we do is to bring the vaccines into the country, so they’ve already been purchased through UNICEF, and then we track where they go.

Mostly we operate at the technical level. So while we are concerned about corruption we haven’t in our programmes run into it directly.

What is the latest on the polio campaign that the Gates Foundation is involved in in Nigeria?

The Nigerian government, through the effort of Dr. Pate and support from partners that we support, WHO and UNICEF, is making sure the polio campaigns are improving a lot. The quality of the campaign has improved; there have been new people brought in so that we monitor the campaign in different ways; we use satellite maps to make sure were are not missing any villagers or migratory people. So all the data shows the campaign has improved. The big part of a concern right now is that up in the Northeast where you have a state of emergency, Borno, Yobe and Adamawa, the question is will they be able to do the campaigns up there? So there has been some interruption and that will be a problem because polio could get loose there. But we do feel like there is progress and we hope the insecurity doesn’t reverse that progress.

http://mobile.thegatesnotes.com/Topics/Development/Kick-Off-with-Nigerian-President-UNGA?WT.mc_id=09_23_2013_day1_tw&WT.tsrc=Twitter

Kicking Off the Week with Nigeria's President
By Bill Gates


It's the kickoff to U.N. Week here in New York, and while locals like to complain about the traffic (I can see why), it is a great opportunity for me to meet with leaders from parts of the world where our foundation is working—to talk about global health and development projects.

I started off on Monday morning meeting Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan. Besides our work with our partners on polio in Nigeria, we are also working with the government to improve their agricultural sector. I've written before about China's potential to help developing countries in Africa learn from its successes, but in Nigeria we have a really interesting project just getting off the ground where Brazil is working with Nigeria to bring up agricultural productivity in their northern Guinea savannah. Brazil has done an amazing job helping their own farmers in the Cerrado region to improve their yields, which brings tremendous economic and social benefits.

President Jonathan assembled a meeting of experts in New York and we spent a couple of hours reviewing their progress and discussing next steps. I also had a chance to catch up with President Jonathan about the work we're doing with our partners on polio, which is showing encouraging progress. Nigeria had 43 confirmed cases of polio in the first 8 months of 2013, a drop of 50 percent from the same period last year. Finishing the job is quite an undertaking, so having the President's support is a big deal. I was pleased we got to spend as much time together as we did.

http://mobile.thegatesnotes.com/Topics/Development/Kick-Off-with-Nigerian-President-UNGA?WT.mc_id=09_23_2013_day1_tw&WT.tsrc=Twitter

Chai! Bill is ssssoooooooo humble. God will bless u a trillion folds and because we know u will give back to d world more than we give u, may god immortalise ur soul here on earth.
U sir are a saint.

@ OP

Where in the article that you provided does it state that Gates praised Goodluck's performance?

Katsumoto: @ OP

Where in the article that you provided does it state that Gates praised Goodluck's performance?

Are you sure you know how to read? Pathetic question!

theoctopus:
Well, giving nutrition to young children so they don't die seems like a universal value to us. The president of Nigeria gave a great speech about how millions Nigerian children over the years will die unnecessarily unless we improve the health system and we improve the resources in that health system. And the leaders of the Nigerian health efforts like (Health Minister) Dr. Pate who is very capable has been very good at using expertise and resources to see how he can meet the president's promise of not letting Nigerian children die. So this is about saving lives.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201306131512.html

The president of Nigeria gave a speech about how millions of Nigerian kids will die unnecessarily if foreign bodies don't assist.
Yet this is the president of a nation where senators earn in excess of $1.4m annually, where the president and his fat wife spend an obscene amount of money on food, and where the president's ugly wife wanted to spend 4 Billion on building a first lady's complex.

Nigerians deserve the kind of leaders they get. The chap has no business leading a kindergarten class yet he is leading a nation.

theoctopus:

Are you sure you know how to read? Pathetic question!

It was a simple question - where does it state in the article that Gates praised Goodluck's performance?

Don't shy away from pointing it out please.

Katsumoto:

It was a simple question - where does it state in the article that Gates praised Goodluck's performance?

Don't shy away from pointing it out please.

the last two long paragraphs

Katsumoto:

The president of Nigeria gave a speech about how millions of Nigerian kids will die unnecessarily if foreign bodies don't assist.
Yet this is the president of a nation where senators earn in excess of $1.4m annually, where the president and his fat wife spend an obscene amount of money on food, and where the president's ugly wife wanted to spend 4 Billion on building a first lady's complex.

Nigerians deserve the kind of leaders they get. The chap has no business leading a kindergarten class yet he is leading a nation.

I don't have time for trolls and partisan nonentities. Shush!

Katsumoto:

It was a simple question - where does it state in the article that Gates praised Goodluck's performance?

Don't shy away from pointing it out please.

the last two paragraphs

Silkmoth33: the last two long paragraphs

Thank you but what I want to see are the actual words that correlate to Gates praising Goodluck's performance.

You can help by providing the excerpt. Lets remove any ambiguity.
'

Katsumoto:

It was a simple question - where does it state in the article that Gates praised Goodluck's performance?

Don't shy away from pointing it out please.

I don't do unintelligent discussions. It isn't worth my time, sorry

theoctopus:

I don't have time for trolls and partisan nonentities. Shush!

You are taking a beating on your own propaganda thread.

theoctopus:

I don't do unintelligent discussions. It isn't worth my time, sorry

If you have courage and honesty, simply point out where Gates praised Jonathan's performance.

Don't use abrasiveness to mask the deceit.

These PDP fools think that others are unable to comprehend just as they can't.

The illiterate posted an article and gave it a title that doesn't reflect the contents of the article.

If you are man enough, point out where Gates praised Jonathan.

Katsumoto:



You are taking a beating on your own propaganda thread.

You sound like a little kid. You should try and grow up. You delude yourself if you think you are that important.

theoctopus:

You sound like a little kid. You should try and grow up. You delude yourself if you think you are that important.

I am not important - I just want you to show us where in your article Gates praised Jonathan.

Is that too much to ask?

Yes I am a kid, yet you a grown man gave himself a moniker called theoctopus.

All GEJ haters,there is a transformer in the neigbourhood,

I can see some fellas receiving lectures at "The School of Hard Knocks" on this thread. !

Kudos Mr Kats !..U gave them what they wanted. !!!

I am getting tired.

When is theoctopus going to show us where Gates praised Jonathan?

It is his thread and his title.

Mr Octopus, if you don't want to be queried, perhaps you should have opened your thread in fishland - tilapia and squids will not query you.

theoctopus:

You sound like a little kid. You should try and grow up. You delude yourself if you think you are that important.

Stop using formula dodge e, answer the question that was thrown to u.

@Katsumoto


I also had a chance to catch up with President Jonathan about the work we're doing with our partners on polio, which is showing encouraging progress. Nigeria had 43 confirmed cases of polio in the first 8 months of 2013, a drop of 50 percent from the same period last year. Finishing the job is quite an undertaking, so having the President's support is a big deal. I was pleased we got to spend as much time together as we did.


This is simple comprehension we did in Primary School.

Jeboy:

@Katsumoto


I also had a chance to catch up with President Jonathan about the work we're doing with our partners on polio, which is showing encouraging progress. Nigeria had 43 confirmed cases of polio in the first 8 months of 2013, a drop of 50 percent from the same period last year. Finishing the job is quite an undertaking, so having the President's support is a big deal. I was pleased we got to spend as much time together as we did.


This is simple comprehension we did in Primary School.

Clearly you are the one lacking comprehension.

First, the work is being done by the Gates foundation and its partners. Read the bolded part again. If Jonathan was able to reduce the incidence of Polio through its own agents then perhaps he might be praised.

Second, having the president's support is not the same thing as Gates praising Jonathan's performance.

Third, praising the president's performance reads as Gates praising Jonathans's overall performance. Is that the case here? Gates is talking about the work he is doing and mentions that Goodluck's support as been useful. He neither praises Jonathan's overall performance nor does he praise Jonathan for the work he (Gates) is doing.

Why didn't Soyinka's father or mother accept the Nobel prize on his part? Afterall, they supported him in his journey.

What exactly did Jonathan do that he is being praised for? No where is Jonathan praised in that article.

Katsumoto:

Clearly you are the one lacking comprehension.

First, the work is being done by the Gates foundation and its partners. Read the bolded part again. If Jonathan was able to reduce the incidence of Polio through its own agents then perhaps he might be praised.

Second, having the president's support is not the same thing as Gates praising Jonathan's performance.

Third, praising the president's performance reads as Gates praising Jonathans's overall performance. Is that the case here? Gates is talking about the work he is doing and mentions that Goodluck's support as been useful. He neither praises Jonathan's overall performance nor does he praise Jonathan for the work he (Gates) is doing.

Why didn't Soyinka's father or mother accept the Nobel prize on his part? Afterall, they supported him in his journey.

What exactly did Jonathan do that he is being praised for? No where is Jonathan praised in that article.

Obviously, GEJ and his foot soldiers are struggling below their inferior capacity to milk even the most ridiculous, irrelevant and tiniest glimmer of success from this NY fiasco..


This is just too shameful and absurd...

I can really pinpoint in d post where GEJ is being praised , but let assume he was praise truly, do our govt have to wait for 4rin aid b4 they can know what to do , despite the 1billion naira food eaten in aso villa ?
All is Well

Katsumoto:

Clearly you are the one lacking comprehension.

First, the work is being done by the Gates foundation and its partners. Read the bolded part again. If Jonathan was able to reduce the incidence of Polio through its own agents then perhaps he might be praised.

Second, having the president's support is not the same thing as Gates praising Jonathan's performance.

Third, praising the president's performance reads as Gates praising Jonathans's overall performance. Is that the case here? Gates is talking about the work he is doing and mentions that Goodluck's support as been useful. He neither praises Jonathan's overall performance nor does he praise Jonathan for the work he (Gates) is doing.

Why didn't Soyinka's father or mother accept the Nobel prize on his part? Afterall, they supported him in his journey.

What exactly did Jonathan do that he is being praised for? No where is Jonathan praised in that article.

Hold on, hold on, wooo, hold on mehn!!!

The richest man on the planet has acknowledged and thanked The President of the most populous black country in the world for his greatest accomplishments. Gej is the first Nigerian President to be praised by Bill Gates, the first Nigerian President to ring the closing bell at NYSE and thereby officialy closing all markets on the planet, including the single most revenue generating market anywhere on the African continent, Ladipo.

Gej is in a different class mehn! How dare you criticize the only President who has successfully tackled terror in Africa?

My man, this is an abomination and until we give you clearance you are banned from stepping foot anywhere in SS or SE.

Katz,

If Tompolo or Alhaji catch you, you go hear am.

Katsumoto: I am getting tired.

When is theoctopus going to show us where Gates praised Jonathan?

It is his thread and his title.

Mr Octopus, if you don't want to be queried, perhaps you should have opened your thread in fishland - tilapia and squids will not query you.

Thats not d least funny.
Dere was no place where he praised jonathan.
actually what I had in mind was the fact that bill was happy that he enjoyed what little time he had with the president.

Now uve had ur fun and have succeeded in ruining it for me. FInally some one posted an excerpt on polio, but see what it has amounted to.
Nigerians u never seize to amaze me!

Silkmoth33:


Thats not d least funny.
Dere was no place where he praised jonathan.
actually what I had in mind was the fact that bill was happy that he enjoyed what little time he had with the president.

Now uve had ur fun and have succeeded in ruining it for me. FInally some one posted an excerpt on polio, but see what it has amounted to.
Nigerians u never seize to amaze me!

Are you theoctopus? Why am I not surprised? If you agree that there was no place in the article where Gates praised Jonathan, why then are you not taking issues with a fraudulently titled thread?

The excerpt on polio was about the work Gates and his partners are doing on eradicating Polio. Don't try to give credit where it isn't due. If Jonathan and his predecessors did their jobs, Gates would not have had to step in to do the work that a government should be doing.

And lastly, at what point did I tell you I was Nigerian? Or does posting on Nairaland make me Nigerian? Perhaps posting on huffington post makes me American.

Mayor_of_Lagos: Katz,

If Tompolo or Alhaji catch you, you go hear am.

Those chaps are only powerful in an environment where their friend is in power. No be their fault.

And since I am far removed from their environment, they can't do jack. In my environment, inability to be speak English will make them keep quiet.

Anywhere else in the world, they would be classed as riff-raffs.

Katsumoto:

Those chaps are only powerful in an environment where their friend is in power. No be their fault.

And since I am far removed from their environment, they can't do jack. In my environment, inability to be speak English will make them keep quiet.

Anywhere else in the world, they would be classed as riff-raffs.

Hey dude u are not making any sense

From the article one thing of note was in the area of improvement in agricultural productivity whereby the agric ministry is partnering with Brazil on that. As far as am concerned I give this administration thumbs up in the agric sector, Adesina knows his onions and effective impact are being felt.

Also another stuff that got my attention from the news about this present US visit by the presidents was his meeting with the CEOs of top firms in Wall street who have investments in Nigeria, firms like Coca Cola, General Electric, Chevron etcm for the fact these Wall street big boys and the likes of bill gates all sought audience with the president of Nigeria, shows the high place and regard for Nigeria vis-à-vis her president. What most of ur likes don't understand is that Nigeria with all her numerous problems is one of the next big things to happen and this administration surrounding themselves with the likes of okonjo iweala, Adesina, Aganga know their onions cos these guys I mentioned. That's why when I see comments from ur types I get angry because it is ur types that when put in a simple structured system cannot effect even basic change, I ave looked through ur post to get even one maeaningful thing but I couldn't decipher one thing.