Bill & Melinda Gates: Our bet for 2030 #Bet2030 #GlobalSupport Here are four big breakthroughs we see coming by 2030: First, child deaths will go down by half. In 1990, one in 10 children in the world died before age 5. Today, its one in 20. By 2030, it will be one in 40. Almost all countries will include vaccines for diarrhea and pneumonia, two of the biggest killers of children, in their immunization programs. Better sanitation will cut the spread of disease dramatically. And were learning how to help more mothers adopt practices such as proper breastfeeding and skin-to-skin contact with their babies that prevent newborns from dying in the first month after theyre born. Courtesy Gates Foundation Courtesy Gates Foundation Second, Africa will be able to feed itself. Today, the continent has to rely on imports and food aid to feed its people, even though seven out of 10 people in sub-Saharan Africa are farmers. Part of the problem is that African farmers get just a fraction of the yields that American farmers get. In the next 15 years, however, innovations in farming will erase these brutal ironies. With better fertilizer and hardier crops, African farmers will be able to grow a greater variety of food and sell their surpluses to supplement their familys diet with vegetables, eggs, milk, and meat. Even as climate change makes farmers job more difficult, we can get them enough innovation and information to increase productivity by 50% for the continent overall. Countries like Ghana are also building better roads and adopting policies that make it easier to move food to the places where its most needed. In 15 years, Africa will still import food when it makes sense to do so, but it will also export much more, eventually achieving a net positive trade balance. Third, mobile banking will help the poor radically transform their lives. Today, some 2.5 billion people dont have access to cheap and easy financial services -- a problem that makes it much more...
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 21:55:04 +0000