2024 Gates Foundation Annual LetterPhilanthropy’s once-in-a-generation opportunityBy Mark Suzman, Chief Executive Officer
This year the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has committed to spending $8.6 billion to help meet mounting needs and fund innovative ways to save and improve lives. Many philanthropists are stepping up, but this extraordinary moment requires more: more urgency, more resources, and more bold, new ideas from around the world. By focusing on the areas of greatest human need, we can realize the full potential of philanthropy at the moment when the world needs it most.今年，比尔及梅琳达·盖茨基金会承诺投入86亿美元，以帮助满足全球巨大的需求、为挽救生命和改善生活的创新方案提供资金。许多慈善家已经开始行动，但此时此刻，世界需要更强的紧迫感、更多的资源，以及来自世界各地更大胆的想法。通过专注于人类当下最迫切的需求，我们可以充分发挥慈善的潜能。Last year, a man named Chuck Feeney died, at the age of 92. Feeney was a billionaire, but you might not have heard of him. He purposely led a low-profile life – he wore a ten-dollar watch and, in his final years, didn’t own a house or a car. The field where he made his billions, duty-free shopping, doesn’t grab many headlines.去年，一位名叫查克·费尼（Chuck Feeney）的人去世了，享年92岁。费尼是一位亿万富翁，但你可能从未听说过他。他选择了低调的生活，戴一块价值10美元的手表，在他生命的最后几年既没有房也没有车。他从全球免税购物生意中赚到了百亿财富，但这一领域通常不会占据新闻头条。You won’t find Feeney’s name carved on buildings – but his legacy is indelible.你找不到刻着费尼名字的建筑物，但他留给我们的遗产不可磨灭。In 2011, Feeney joined the Giving Pledge, a movement of individuals with extraordinary wealth who commit to giving the majority of it to charitable causes during their lifetimes or in their wills. At the time, he wrote, “I cannot think of a more personally rewarding and appropriate use of wealth than to give while one is living, to personally devote oneself to meaningful efforts to improve the human condition.”2011年，费尼加入了“捐赠誓言”（Giving Pledge），这是一项由拥有巨额财富的个人发起的倡议，他们承诺在有生之年或在遗嘱中将大部分财富捐给慈善事业。费尼当时写到：“在活着的时候就做出捐赠、投身于改善人类福祉的努力，我想不出有什么比这更有意义、更恰当的方式来使用财富了。”What made Feeney remarkable isn’t what he said he’d do – it’s how thoroughly and thoughtfully he did it. He gave away virtually all his wealth while he was alive. And he gave it to a vast array of causes around the world: public health system strengthening in Vietnam, HIV clinics in South Africa, and grassroots campaigns to expand health care coverage to people with low incomes, to name a few.费尼的非凡之处不在于他说他要做什么，而在于他做得如此认真和彻底。他在世时几乎把所有财富都捐给了世界各地多种多样的慈善项目，从加强越南的公共卫生系统，到支持南非的艾滋病诊所，再到扩大低收入人群医疗卫生服务覆盖的基层运动等等。Feeney’s humble but powerful philanthropy inspired so many people, including Warren Buffett and our foundation’s co-chairs, Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates. He showed us all how the actions of one generous person can set the wheels in motion for generations of progress.费尼谦逊而有力的慈善精神激励了很多人，包括沃伦·巴菲特和我们基金会的联席主席比尔·盖茨与梅琳达·弗兰奇·盖茨。从他身上，我们看到一个慷慨的人是如何通过他的行动推动几代人的进步的。That’s exactly what our foundation aims to do. We believe that everyone should have the chance to live a healthy and productive life, no matter who they are or where they live.这正是我们基金会的目标。我们相信，人人都应该有机会过上健康而富有成效的生活，无论他们是谁，无论他们生活在哪里。To make the biggest impact – which we measure in lives saved and livelihoods improved – we focus on areas of great human need in the United States and around the world. We’re committed to spending down our endowment after our founders’ deaths because we’re focused on solving urgent problems now, and helping set up systems that will outlive us.为了让捐赠产生最大的社会效益——我们用挽救生命和改善生活作为衡量指标——我们专注于满足美国和世界各地的人们最迫切的需求。我们承诺在创始人去世后逐步用掉我们的慈善资产，因为我们专注于解决当前最紧迫的问题，并帮助建立比我们的生命更长久的、可持续产生影响的系统。That’s why our board committed to increasing our annual payout to $9 billion by 2026. Earlier this month, they approved a 2024 budget of $8.6B, which we’ll use to fund innovative ways to save and improve lives.这就是为什么我们的理事会做出承诺，到2026年将我们的年度赠款支出增至90亿美元。本月早些时候，理事会批准了2024年的年度预算：86亿美元。我们将用这笔钱资助能够挽救生命、改善生活的创新。Other philanthropists are stepping up too – and in this letter I’ll share why that makes me so hopeful about how much more we can achieve together at a time of great need and even greater opportunity.其他慈善家也在加速行动。在这封信中，我会和大家分享为什么在这个巨大的需求与更加巨大的机遇并存的时代，我对于通过共同努力取得更多成就充满希望。Big challenges & big potentialIn the years since the COVID-19 pandemic struck, we’ve witnessed the rise, after decades of decline, of extreme poverty. A resurgence of deadly infectious diseases. Climate disasters. Old wars and new ones.新冠疫情暴发以来的几年里，我们目睹了极端贫困率在经历了几十年的下降后出现反弹、致命的传染病死灰复燃，以及气候灾难和新旧战争。It’s hard to grapple with the inequities. Parents bury their children, lost to diseases people in rich countries will never have to worry about. Women die in childbirth who could have been saved with basic, low-cost interventions – simply because of their race, income, or where they happen to be born. Hundreds of millions of people live on less than $2.15 a day – on the same planet where, during the first 24 months of the pandemic, billionaires’ wealth rose more than it had in the 23 years prior.这些不平等难以应对。父母埋葬病逝的孩子，而这些疾病是富裕国家永远不必担心的问题。很多女性死于分娩，而仅仅因为她们的种族、收入或出生地使得她们无法获得低成本的基本干预措施。数亿人每天的生活费不足2.15美元——而就在同一个星球上，在疫情暴发的头24个月里，亿万富豪的财富增幅超过了此前的23年。And just as needs are mounting, low-income countries have fewer resources with which to meet them. Nearly half the world’s people now live in countries that spend more on servicing foreign debt than they do on health care. And official development assistance – the grants and low-cost financing that help the poorest countries meet basic human needs – has steadily fallen in real terms, as wealthy countries spend more on other priorities at home and abroad.需求是巨大的，但低收入国家用于满足需求的资源却捉襟见肘。世界近一半人口生活在偿还外债的支出超过医疗保健支出的国家。政府发展援助计划，即帮助最贫困国家满足人类基本需求的赠款和低成本融资，在实际价值上逐年下降，因为富裕国家在国内外的其他优先事项上花费得更多。
来源：公众号“甲申同文翻译”，侵权联系删除。
