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February-April 2005
Global Giving Round-Up
Overviews of best-practices around the world and links to learn more about them
Bristol-Myers Squibb expands innovative partnerships to combat HIV/AIDS in Africa
Pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers Squibb continues to break new ground -- literally and figuratively -- in its $120 million Secure the Future (STF -- www.securethefuture.com) program to build capacity in communities in sub-Saharan Africa for the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS (see the Oct.-Nov. 2003 Global Giving Matters story on STF). In Africa in January for a series of site visits, CEO Peter R. Dolan was greeted in Drifontein, South Africa by a crowd of 6,000 residents of rural Kwa Zulu Natal Province who gathered to mark the launch of STF's model Community-Based Treatment Support program in nearby Ladysmith. The Ladysmith program is operated in conjunction with local NGO Mpilonhle Project, the Ladysmith Provincial Hospital and its Social Work Unit, and the Provincial Department of Health. It offers a range of services to the district's 600,000 residents, including a clinic providing comprehensive, daily antiretroviral treatment, counseling, support for orphans and children, food security, community education and income support. The new center is one of six similar community-based programs funded by STF and sited in some of the most resource-constrained rural locations in South Africa, Swaziland, Lesotho, Namibia, Botswana, and Mali.
Dolan also was on hand to break ground for the first pediatric HIV/AIDS medical center in Swaziland, a partnership between STF, the National Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, and the Baylor College of Medicine's International Pediatric AIDS Initiative. The Swaziland facility is modeled on the continent's first pediatric AIDS hospital, in Gabarone, Botswana, also a public-private partnership including STF, Baylor and the government of Botswana. Opened in 2003, the Botswana Center currently cares for more than 1200 HIV-infected children, one of the largest concentrations of children under treatment for HIV/AIDS in the world. The new center, in Mbabane, Swaziland will be linked to other pediatric AIDS centers operated by Baylor in Africa and elsewhere around the globe. Construction of another STF-supported pediatric AIDS center is scheduled to begin in Maseru, Lesotho in late 2005. With world attention focused on the Asian tsunami while he was in Africa, Dolan urged his fellow corporate donors not to forget the millions around the world infected and impacted by AIDS. He estimated that 9,000 people globally die of AIDS and its complications every day, the equivalent of "having a tsunami come at us about every three weeks." Bristol-Myers Squibb donated $7.5 million worth of drugs to the tsunami relief effort, $1.2 million in cash and matched donations from more than 2000 employees.
Hong Kong businessman creates philanthropic beachhead in Canada
Li Ka Shing of Hong Kong, long an influential donor in Asia, is establishing a major philanthropic base in Canada. Li, who has already given more than US$800 million to Hong Kong charitable causes, will create the Li Ka Shing Canada Foundation with proceeds from the sale of his 4.9 percent stake in the Canada Bank of Commerce. The sale is expected to yield approximately $1 billion. The new Canadian foundation will address a broad, but as yet unspecified range of causes. Born and raised in China in humble circumstances, Li built a fortune from investing in real estate and acquiring a well-known British trading house. Today, as chairman of the Cheung Kong Group of Companies, which includes Hutchison Whampoa Ltd., he is one of the world's wealthiest individuals, with a fortune estimated at more than $12 billion. Li established the original Li Ka Shing Foundation (www.lksf.org) in Hong Kong in 1980; it provides funding for a variety of initiatives in mainland China and Hong Kong, including education, health care, community welfare, culture and sports. More recently, Hong Kong's Li Ka Shing Foundation and Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. together contributed more than $3 million toward tsunami relief in southern Asia. In establishing what could be one of Canada's two largest foundations, Li said he was recognizing the "warm welcome Canada has extended to me and to our group of companies over the years." (Association of Fundraising Professionals Release, January 24, 2005; Wall Street Journal, February 4, 2005)
Aga Khan honored for bridging gap between Islamic and western cultures
His Highness the Aga Khan was awarded the National Building Museum's Vincent Scully Prize in Washington on January 26, in recognition of his contributions to promoting design excellence, rural and urban revitalization, and historic preservation in countries with a significant Muslim presence. The Aga Khan, the hereditary spiritual leader of the world's Shia Ismaili Muslims, created the world's largest architectural prize, the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, in 1977 to identify and encourage building concepts that address the needs of Islamic societies worldwide. In accepting the award from the National Building Museum, the Aga Khan said he would donate the $25,000 Scully Prize money, together with a matching gift of his own, to support architectural students from developing countries studying at Harvard, Yale and MIT.
At a ceremony in Delhi in December, the Aga Khan presented the 2004 Aga Khan Award for Architecture, which carries a prize fund of $500,000, to recipients from Egypt, Burkina Faso, Yemen, Jerusalem, Turkey, and Kuala Lumpur. One of the recipients, Iranian architect Nader Khalili, was recognized for recycling the materials of war -- sandbags and barbed wire -- for peaceful ends in his designs, which have been used by the United Nations in temporary shelters for refugees. The award is administered by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, part of the Aga Khan Development Network (www.akdn.org), a group of private development agencies working to empower communities to improve living conditions and opportunities. AKDN is active in more that 30 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and North America. (Aga Khan Development Network release, January 26, 2005)
Businessman lends logistics expertise to Asian tsunami relief and recovery efforts
In response to the tsunami disaster in Asia last year, philanthropist Lynn Fritz mobilized about 100 volunteers from global corporations with offices in the region to lend supply chain management and IT expertise to the relief effort. As described in the Dec. 2004-Jan. 2005 issue of Global Giving Matters, Fritz had founded the Fritz Institute to bring use private sector know-how to improve the delivery of humanitarian relief; together with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the institute developed a special Humanitarian Logistics Software, which became fully operation just four months before the tsunami. In the aftermath of the disaster, several other global and local NGOs, including World Vision International, Mercy Corps, and a variety of Indonesian and Sri Lankan organizations, expressed interest in HLS; Fritz Institute is developing a "lite" version of HLS that will permit even the smallest relief organization to ramp up quickly without significant infrastructure investment. (San Francisco Business Times, January 7-13, 2005)
Tsunami giving spurs concerns about impact on other worthy causes
A central question has emerged following the unprecedented outpouring of private donations to aid in tsunami relief efforts: will this burst of generosity hinder giving for ongoing social and economic development work in other areas? While the jury is still out on this question, a January 20, 2005 article in the online journal Slate suggests that it will. Following the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 2001, the last time that a catastrophic event spurred an outburst of contributions among US donors ($1.8 billion), Slate's Daniel Gross asserts that overall levels of US giving actually declined by 2.3 percent in real terms. Similarly, he argues that the outpouring of tsunami donations in early January 2005 (more than $500 million and counting) probably won't have much of an effect on overall giving levels. "The milk of human kindness is probably flowing at the usual rate...it's just getting channeled in other directions," writes Gross. He notes that a large portion of giving isn't spontaneous at all, but instead derives from bequest and estates, multi-year commitments from foundations and individuals, and annual gifts from corporations, so the ability of any one event to inspire a fundamental shift in donation levels is limited. As Ingrid Srinath, Chief Executive of India's Child Relief and You and Synergos Senior Fellow notes, "In the outpouring of public grief and sympathy we all feel for victims of a disaster, it is all too easy to overlook those who confront similar threats on a daily basis." Srinath urges donors "not to forget to continue to support the causes and organizations you care about."
Private-public alliance sparks historic exchange on restorative justice in Colombia
An international symposium on restorative justice and peace held in Cali, Colombia in February was the backdrop for an historic exchange between veterans of the apartheid struggle in South Africa and stakeholders attempting to find their own resolution to five decades of civil war in Colombia. The event culminated in an offer from South African Nobel Peace Prize winner and former Archbishop Desmond Tutu to enlist his government's aid in Colombia's peace process inviting rebel leaders for talks. The idea for the symposium was generated by an exchange between Colombian-born philanthropist María Eugenia Garcés and Tokyo Sexwale, a leader in the anti-apartheid movement, now Chairman of Mvelaphanda Holdings, at the annual meeting of the Global Philanthropists Circle in 2003. Synergos assisted Garcés in bringing together an unprecedented private-public coalition of sponsors for the symposium -- and subsequent work on restorative justice -- including Colombian foundations, religious and academic institutions, the US Agency for International Development's Global Development Alliance, international funders, and Synergos. The effort comes at a critical moment in Colombia, when the National Congress is debating legislation on the treatment of former rebels. More information on the international symposium is available on www.justicia-restaurativa-colombia.org.
Gates Foundation, Norway boost fund for child vaccines in developing countries
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced that it will donate $750 million over the next 10 years to make vaccinations available to more children in developing countries. The announcement came with a commitment by the government of Norway to contribute $290 million to the effort, bringing total new funding to more than $1 billion. The funds will support the work of the Global Alliance for Vaccinations and Immunization (GAVI), a partnership between governments, aid organizations and the private sector. GAVI is the prime international mechanism for leveraging resources to speed development of new vaccines, strengthen delivery systems, and improve access to vaccines for poor countries. The latest donation by the Gates Foundation represents a doubling of the foundation's original $750 million in 1999 to establish GAVI. Norway gave $150 million in GAVI's start-up phase. Among governments, only the US gave more to support the childhood vaccine effort -- $290 million -- in the start-up phase than Norway. GAVI says it has prevented 670,000 deaths since it was created and aims to immunize 90 percent of children in developing countries by 2015.
In other news involving Gates corporate philanthropy, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has committed to collaborating with the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to improve access to computers, the Internet and information technology training in developing countries. The program will also focus on training teachers and other professionals to use computers and online resources to share information. (Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations Release January 25, 2005; Press Association, November 17, 2004)
© 2005 The Synergos Institute
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