Bono And Billionaire Bill Call On World’s Elite To Do More For The Poor
Billionaire Bill Gates and U2 frontman Bono chastised their fellow philanthropists gathered at the Davos Forum in Switzerland for not doing enough to solve the world's problems, according to the AP:
"This is the world's report card. In some areas there are good grades, in some areas not," Gates said. "We can make more progress, so it's important to be part of this endeavor. It's the most important work in the world."
Bono was less diplomatic:
"My advice to the developing world? Get a good lawyer and haul our asses into court!" he said.
Millions of people in developing nations continue to suffer from a lack of basic sanitation, safe drinking water, and schools, along with diseases such as AIDS and malaria. But the news wasn't all bad: as the AP reports, some progress has been made since 2000:
Some 2 million lives are saved each year by immunizations, 41 million more children are in school, and polio, leprosy and neonatal tetanus are close to elimination.
But some in the business community challenge Gates' insistence that corporations should seek solutions to all the challenges facing less affluent nations. Once such naysayer, CNET News.com's Declan McCullagh, insists that "encouraging companies to give to charities, enter smaller markets, or assign top employees to tackle intractable problems in far-flung regions--where those companies may not even have business--conflicts with the duties owed to shareholders."
What folks like McCullagh fail to realize is that we are all shareholders with a stake in raising the world's living standards.
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