"Children across Africa die every day because they don't have access to vaccines that children in communities like Seattle take for granted."In his speech, Gates focussed on the need to change the economics of vaccine distribution and called for the creation of public-private partnerships to help make existing vaccines available to all children and to find new vaccines to combat malaria, AIDS, tuberculosis and other diseases that threaten the health of the developing world.

Mandela's appearance came while he and his wife were on a tour of the Seattle area to promote a broader awareness of issues of importance to Africa and to promote the work of their own philanthropic foundations.Near the end of the couple's visit, the Gates Foundation and the Bellevue-based Craig and Susan McCaw Foundation announced gifts totalling $30 million to the Nelson Mandela Foundation and the Machel Foundation for Community Development.

UN increases collaborations with corporations
Companies that once merely tolerated the United Nations as a worthy, but not particularly effective, agency are now viewing it as a valuable partner in their efforts to expand globally, reports The New York Times.And the United Nations, in turn, has come to see the private sector as a potential ally in improving the lot of the world's poorest citizens.

The advantage of such partnerships for corporate entities lies in the introductions the UN can provide to governments in areas where corporations wish to operate. And while the UN continues to carefully guard its neutrality and does not promote specific for-profit interests, it has begun to appeal to entire industries for assistance and funding.

Philanthropic gifts to the UN from captains of industry are not new -both Bill Gates and Ted Turner have made sizable donations to United Nations-sponsored efforts in recent years. But the emerging trend is for companies themselves to use UN collaboration as a tool to promote their products."If we can set up a nonexclusive arrangement with a company to co-finance a project, why not?" asks Mark Malloch Brown, the head of the United Nations Development Program. "It's not like we're saying Microsoft gets Botswana, Corel gets Ghana; we're stimulating competition."

Rockefeller Foundation's new mission
The Rockefeller Foundation is launching a new global mission meant to improve the lives of poor people around the world through knowledge, science, technology, research and analysis.Professor Gordon Conway, president of the foundation, says the initiative will employ a new type of worldwide philanthropy that is collaborative and scientific in nature.

Instead of focussing on the symptoms of the problems, the new mission will try to end human suffering by emphasising effective, strategic approaches to specific challenges faced by the poor, while handling new challenges that arise.Funding for the project will focus on four themes: health, food, work and creative expression.

To accomplish its mission, Rockefeller will work with other foundations and will also find new ways to work with the private sector. Similar Rockefeller projects have lead to the eradication of hookworm, the development of a vaccine for Yellow Fever, and the modernisation of country agriculture known as the `Green Revolution'.