![]() The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) is dangerously and unaccountably distorting the direction of international development, according to a new report by the campaign group Global Justice Now. With assets of $43.5 billion, the BMGF is the largest charitable foundation in the world. It actually distributes more aid for global health than any government. As a result, it has a major influence on issues of global health and agriculture. ‘Gated Development – Is the Gates Foundation always a force for good?’ argues that what BMGF is doing could end up exacerbating global inequality and entrenching corporate power globally. Global Justice Now’s analysis of the BMGF’s programmes shows that the foundation’s senior staff are overwhelmingly drawn from corporate America. As a result, the question is: whose interests are being promoted – those of corporate America or those of ordinary people who seek social and economic justice rather than charity? The report raises a series criticisms including: 1) The relationship between the foundation and Microsoft’s tax practices. A 2012 report from the US Senate found that Microsoft’s use of offshore subsidiaries enabled it to avoid taxes of $4.5 billion, a sumgreater than the BMGF’s annual grant making ($3.6 billion in 2014). 2) The close relationship that BMGF has with many corporations whose role and policies contribute to ongoing poverty. Not only is BMGF profiting from numerous investments in a series of controversial companies which contribute to economic and social injustice, it is also actively supporting a series of those companies, including Monsanto, Dupont and Bayer through a variety of pro-corporate initiatives around the world. 3) The foundation’s promotion of industrial agriculture across Africa, pushing for the adoption of GM, patented seed systems and chemical fertilisers, all of which undermine existing sustainable, small-scale farming that is providing the vast majority of food security across the continent. 4) The foundation’s promotion of projects around the world pushing private healthcare and education. Numerous agencies have raised concerns that such projects exacerbate inequality and undermine the universal provision of such basic human necessities. 5) BMGF’s funding of a series of vaccine programmes that have reportedly lead to illnesses or even deaths with little official or media scrutiny. Polly Jones the head of campaigns and policy at Global Justice Now says: “The Gates Foundation has rapidly become the most influential actor in the world of global health and agricultural policies, but there’s no oversight or accountability in how that influence is managed. This concentration of power and influence is even more problematic when you consider that the philanthropic vision of the Gates Foundation seems to be largely based on the values of corporate America. Please read this and ask yourself, is this really going to benefil corporate America in the long-term? What about the future of our American children, grand-children? As for Africans, please see online videos on the destruction of Argentina's agricultural land. And is this really what we want? Do we really need Bill Gates/Monsanto GMOs? How can someone who simply happens to be a billionaire, dictate the lives of an entire continent's people? He doesn't care about black people, especially, Africans, whom he qualifies as "dirty, defecates in their rivers, this is why they have diseases." Are we that desperate? Based on this report, it is evident that all major international institutions receive fund from the Gates foundations. Where is the money coming from? how can they sustain such donations? Answer: they have a stake (profit) in everything they give into. Nothing is for free. If Africans don't wake up and throw the Gates/Monsanto out of the continent, Bill Gates/Melinda Gates will be the combination of Cecil Rhode and King Leopold of Belgium in Africa. Once Africans were colonized by invaders using germs/steel/guns. In this century, it appears that Africans are being re-colonized through biological weapons and GMOs. This cannot be in the national interest of the United States of America. Please read full article below: The Gates Foundation’s “Corporate Merry-go-round”: Spearheading the Neo-liberal Plunder of African Agriculture http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-gates-foundations-corporate-merry-go-round-spearheading-the-neo-liberal-plunder-of-african-agriculture/5502761
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |