(MaraviPost): Malawi President Peter Mutharika popularly called APM among friends and admirers says he was humbled and honoured by the presence of Melinda Gates, wife to US billionaire Bill Gates, richest man in the world who paid a courtesy call on him at the Kamuzu Palace in Lilongwe.
According to the President their discussions centered on Malawi’s progress in scaling up efforts to reduce deaths of pregnant women and in turn meet Malawi’s Millennium Development Goal-MDG number 4.
The President said he was pleased to hear from Melinda that since her organisation started implementing safe motherhood programmes in the country, Malawi has made progress in ensuring that pregnant women deliver at a health facility and that the young child receives proper care in its first five years.
The Malawi President said together with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the help of all Malawians, we can eradicate maternal and infant mortality.
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF or the Gates Foundation) is the largest private foundation in the world, founded by Bill and Melinda Gates. It was launched in 2000 and is said to be the largest transparently operated private foundation in the world. The primary aims of the foundation are, globally, to enhance healthcare and reduce extreme poverty, and in America, to expand educational opportunities and access to information technology. The foundation, based in Seattle, Washington, is controlled by its three trustees: Bill Gates, Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett. Other principal officers include Co-Chair William H. Gates, Sr. and Chief Executive Officer Susan Desmond-Hellmann.
It had an endowment of US$42.3 billion as of 24 November 2014.The scale of the foundation and the way it seeks to apply business techniques to giving makes it one of the leaders in venture philanthropy, though the foundation itself notes that the philanthropic role has limitations. In 2007, its founders were ranked as the second most generous philanthropists in America, and Warren Buffett the first. As of May 16, 2013, Bill Gates had donated US$28 billion to the foundation.
