A fruitful partnership

www.nairaland.com/attachments/10328736_screenshot20191001235958chrome_jpeged86588d0ba9f134d29651409a9d1c04

How I cemented my friendship with Aliko Dangote

By Bill Gates
October 1, 2019





Have you ever met someone new and immediately felt like you could talk to them for hours?

That happened the first time I met Aliko Dangote. A couple years ago, he and I ended up going to the same event in New York. A mutual friend suggested that I meet him because he knew we were both super interested in global health. So we made sure to sit next to each other at dinner.

As soon as we shook hands, it was clear we had a ton in common. We both started successful businesses in the late 1970s. For our second act in life, we both chose to start foundations aimed at improving health and education. (Today, the Dangote Foundation is the largest such organization in sub-Saharan Africa.)

More importantly, we both love to geek out over things that make some people’s eyes glaze over, like cement, fertilizer, and iodized salt. Check out this video of Aliko’s recent visit to our foundation’s office in Seattle for proof:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2r0EgK9uu0I

That first meeting sparked the beginning of a fruitful friendship. In 2016, our foundations announced a joint, five-year $100 million commitment to reducing malnutrition in Nigeria.

Malnutrition is the greatest health inequity in the world. It’s responsible for nearly half of all under 5 deaths in Nigeria (and around the world). Even if you survive to adulthood, your chances of dying are much higher, and your quality of life is greatly reduced.

One of the ways our foundations are working together to fight malnutrition is through food fortification. Kids often become malnourished when they don’t get enough micronutrients—vitamins and minerals—to digest their food properly. One way to correct this is by adding micronutrients to the food that families—especially those from low-income households—are purchasing every day.

When you go to a grocery store in the U.S., a lot of food already has this fortification. Think iodized salt, or milk that comes with extra vitamin D and calcium. By introducing additional micronutrients to the food people are already eating, you can improve health without changing any habits. Our foundations are now working together to find other staple foods and condiments that could be used to deliver more micronutrients to more people in Nigeria, like fortified bouillon cubes. (I talked with Aliko about this at our Goalkeepers event in New York a couple days ago. You can watch a video of our conversation here.)

Improving health in Nigeria is critical to making progress in sub-Saharan Africa. The country is home to nearly a quarter of all people living in sub-Saharan Africa, and that population is only going to grow in the future. By solving problems in Nigeria, you can have a huge impact on all of Africa.

Aliko Dangote understands this, and that’s why he’s committed to making progress in his home country. Melinda and I are lucky to have him as a partner (and friend!) in improving health.

naptu2: The Dantata/Dangote family have always been involved in charity work. However these deeds often go unnoticed, because of the family's principles of maintaining privacy and lack of flamboyance.

Al-Hassan Dantata was passionate about education. He backed the establishment of a western style school in the Dala area for hausa (I.e non-fulani) traders' children in the 1930s and established the Dantata english and arabic school in 1944.

Mariya Dangote (Aliko Dangote's mother) donated a hospital, which she built at Rijiya Lemu, to the Kano State Government in 2003.

Aliko Dangote has made the following charitable contributions:

2.5 billion naira to the national fund for flood victims in 2012. 430 million naira to Kogi flood victims. 100 million naira to Sokoto flood victims. $2 million to Pakistan's flood victims. 120 million naira to fight famine in Niger. 600 million naira to women empowerment and free school feeding schemes in Kano State. 500 student capacity hall at Kano State University. 10 million naira annual scholarship for Benue students. $2 million to African Young Leaders fellowship in conjunction with the Forum For Young Global Leaders. $1 million towards education and women empowerment in Tanzania. 1 billion naira to states suffering from the Boko Haram insurgency. 1,000 bed hospital in Kano. And many more

He established the Dangote Foundation which is the philanthropic arm of the dangote Group where yearly he spends millions for worthy causes such as contributions to educational and healthcare institutions, sinking of boreholes and giving of scholarships.

The Dangote Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have jointly pledged to donate huge sums of money towards the eradication of polio in Kano State.

He also established the Dangote Academy.

drips8:
Two generous men

Tekecoms1:
Kuku tell us you used Dangote Cement to cement your relationship with Dangote.

chloride6:
Who told Dangote is your friend?

Go and open cement factory and check back in a few mins..