Corina Cretu: Bill Gates – an example of taking responsibilities towards the others

Corina Cretu, Member of the European Parliament, Vice-president of the Development Committee has co-chaired today in Strasbourg, the extraordinary meeting of this committee, which had as a guest of honour Mr. Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft and the main private donor in humanitarian aid and actions for development in the world.

The initiator of this debate, Corina Cretu called in her intervention for a closer cooperation between the public and the private donors and for an increase in the contributions of the states for  humanitarian aid in order to respect the engagement to allocate 0,7% of their GDP,  in order to achieve  the Millennium Development Goals. Congratulating Mr. Bill Gates for his philanthropic engagement within the global development, the Romanian MEP has expressed her beliefs that Mr. Gate’s example will stimulate others, including the European Union for increasing its budget for development.

“I have appreciated the modesty of Mr. Bill Gates but also his precise speech within the underlining of challenges in our world and the complexity of the concrete actions taken on behalf of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. I believe he should be an example for the European business men, for the Europeans in general with this major social responsibility he has assumed”, declared Corina Cretu. During the debate, the founder of Microsoft has criticised the low implication of the United States in the International Development Policy, emphasizing the reduced amount of USA’s GDP allocated in this area, which is only 2%.

Bill Gates has also mentioned that we need greater contributions from public donors, especially for Agriculture assistance, the extension of the vaccinating campaigns from the people in low-income countries, the prevention of the child mortality and the improvement of the cooperation between the educational process and the new technologies. Mr. Gates has also pointed out the fact that we need to eliminate corruption from the humanitarian programmes and to improve the coordination between the volunteering actions and the philanthropic ones, supporting the genetic modifications for overcoming the global food crisis, but also the encouragement of migratory flows underlining the benefits brought by the labour force movement and criticising the intolerance of the citizens from developed countries in this matter. Bill Gates has given up his position as the richest man in the World, by donating approximately 40 milliards dollars in charitable purposes. Along with the man from the second position, Warren Buffett, he has launched a campaign to persuade the richest persons to donate half of their fortune in philanthropic purposes.