2023盖茨基金会年信｜我们的影响力太大了吗？

2023 Gates Foundation Annual Letter

盖茨基金会2023年信

Mark Suzman, Chief Executive Officer

⻢克·苏斯曼，⾸席执⾏官

（图源：盖茨基金会官网）

Does our foundation have too much influence? 

我们基金会的影响力太大了吗?

Here’s how I see it.

以下是我的看法。

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the remarkable, unprecedented progress made over the previous two decades in global health and development has stalled, and in many cases even reversed. Sadly, instead of accelerating efforts to fight infectious diseases, help reduce extreme poverty, advance gender equality, and address the effects of climate change, the world has so far failed to step up with the necessary political will and resources.

在新冠大流行期间，全球健康和发展领域在过去二十年中取得的空前进步陷入了停滞，甚至在许多领域出现了倒退。令人遗憾的是，世界不仅没有加速行动抗击传染病、帮助减少极端贫困并应对气候变化，反而迄今也没能拿出必要的政治意愿和资源来解决问题。

In that context, at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation we are proud to be doubling down on our commitment to our core mission: helping to ensure that every person has the chance to lead a healthy, productive life.

在这样的背景下，比尔及梅琳达·盖茨基金会很自豪能够加倍努力推进我们的核心使命：帮助确保人人都有机会过上健康而富有成效的生活。

Last year, we created a new, expanded board of trustees, co-chaired by Bill and Melinda, to hold the foundation accountable and ensure that our decisions incorporate diverse, outside perspectives. On January 11, the board approved our 2023 budget of US$8.3 billion, an estimated increase of 15 percent over the 2022 forecasted payout – keeping us on track to meet our commitment of increasing our annual payout to US$9 billion by 2026.

去年，我们成立了一个新的、扩大的理事会，由比尔和梅琳达担任联席主席，负责基金会的治理并确保我们的决策纳入多元化的外部观点。1月11日，我们批准了83亿美元的2023年度预算，预计比2022年年度支出增长15%左右，让我们朝着到2026年将年度支出提升到90亿美元的承诺稳步前进。

This puts us in the privileged position of being able to give away more money than any other philanthropy. It also raises an important question we hear often: Does our spending, along with the doors that it opens, give us too much power and influence?

这使我们比其他任何一家慈善机构都能捐出更多的钱。但同时，这也提出了一个我们经常听到的重要问题：我们的赠款及其带来的机会，是否给了我们太大的权力和影响力？

One line of critique is that our focus on certain problems and solutions draws attention and resources away from other important issues. Another is that we have disproportionate sway in setting national and global agendas, without any formal accountability to voters or international bodies.

一种批评是，我们对某些问题和解决方案的关注分散了对其他重要事项的关注和资源。另一种批评是，我们在设置国家和全球议程方面具有不成比例的影响力，但又不用对选民或国际机构承担任何正式的责任。

These are fair questions – and we have an obligation to be clear about how we try to use our influence and why.

这些都是合理的问题——我们也有义务清楚地说明我们如何利用我们的影响力以及为什么要这样做。

Since Bill and Melinda created the foundation 22 years ago, every choice we’ve made has been in service of our mission. Warren Buffett, who has generously contributed nearly half the foundation’s total resources, has always urged us to “swing for the fences” and take big bets – all to benefit the health and welfare of people whose opportunities are limited because of where they happened to be born. (You can read Bill’s Year Ahead 2023 for his take on some of those bets.)

自比尔和梅琳达22年前创立基金会以来，我们所做的每个选择都服务于我们的使命。沃伦·巴菲特慷慨地贡献了基金会近一半的资源，他一直敦促我们“放手一搏”、下大赌注——所有这些都是为了帮助那些因出生地不同而机会有限的人改善他们的健康和福祉。（你可以从比尔·盖茨的2023年度展望了解他对其中一些赌注的看法。）

It’s true that between our dollars, voice, and convening power, we have access and influence that many others do not. It’s also true that we are able to act in ways that others cannot. Because of this, we can call attention to and help find solutions for problems that otherwise might be neglected.

的确，凭借我们的资金、话语权和号召力，我们拥有其他许多人没有的机会和影响力。我们也确实能够以别人做不到的方式采取行动。因此，我们可以引起关注，并为那些本来会被忽视的问题找到解决方案。

People listen to Bill and Melinda because of who they are, and to others at the foundation because of where we work. We try to use that privilege to elevate the voices of those who don’t have a global platform and push relentlessly for world leaders to spend their funds to lift up vulnerable populations. We push, too, to ensure that innovations and solutions center the needs of women and girls, who are so often overlooked. Our staff use their access to learn from partners about what’s needed in the field and to direct resources to make the impact we all want to see.

人们倾听比尔和梅琳达的声音，是因为他们的身份，而倾听基金会其他人的声音，是因为我们工作的地方。我们试图利用这一特权来提升那些没有全球平台的人的话语权，并不懈地推动世界领导人运用他们的资金去帮助弱势群体。我们还努力确保创新和解决方案能够聚焦于常常被忽视的妇女和女童的需求。我们的员工通过他们的渠道向合作伙伴了解实地情况，并将资源用于产生我们都希望看到的成效。

And because our foundation doesn’t need to make a profit like corporations do or provide immediate results like governments do or raise funds like many NGOs do, we can make high-risk bets on novel solutions that may take a decade or more to pay off.

而且，因为我们的基金会不需要像企业那样盈利、不需要像政府那样产生立竿见影的结果，也不需要像许多非政府组织那样筹集资金，所以我们能冒着高风险押注于可能需要十年或更长时间才能获得回报的创新解决方案。

With this influence comes an enormous responsibility: to act where we can do the most good, play a role that’s appropriate for a philanthropic organization, follow the evidence, be transparent, and work in partnership with those we aim to help.

伴随着这种影响力而来的是巨大的责任：在我们能发挥最大价值的领域采取行动，扮演一个慈善组织应有的角色，遵循实证、保持透明，并与我们旨在帮助的人们开展合作。

Big bets to meet global goals 

为实现全球目标而下的大赌注

One critique we hear a lot: “Why are a couple of unelected billionaires setting the agenda for global health and development?”

我们经常听到这样的批评：“为什么几个未经选举产生的亿万富翁要为全球健康和发展设置议程？”

Yes, our founders are billionaires. But neither they, I, nor the rest of our board of trustees set the world’s agenda; as a foundation, we respond to it. We are guided by the Sustainable Development Goals, a set of concrete, measurable commitments made by every country in the United Nations to their own citizens. 

是的，我们的创始人是亿万富翁。但不是他们，不是我，也不是我们理事会的其他成员设置了全球议程。作为一个基金会，我们对全球议程做出回应。我们以可持续发展目标为指引，这是联合国每个成员国对本国公民做出的一系列切实且可衡量的承诺。

From those shared priorities, we identify a subset of areas – from improving vaccination rates to advancing women’s economic power – where we have the funds, expertise, and relationships to be part of the solution and where transformational progress is unlikely without our involvement. Geographically, we seek to help those who live in places with a high burden of disease and poverty.

从这些共同的优先事项中，我们确定了一系列的领域——从提高疫苗接种率到提升妇女的经济权力——在这些领域，我们有资金、专长和伙伴关系，可以成为解决方案的一部分。在这些领域，如果没有我们的参与，就不大可能取得变革式的进步。从地域上讲，我们希望帮助那些生活在疾病和贫困高负担地区的人。

We make all our investments public and strive to be fully transparent about our priorities and strategies. Finally, we find ways to join others who are tackling these challenges and carefully assess the landscape to determine our role. After all, while our payout is large, it’s typically only a small portion of the money the world spends on these issues. So we work with partners to amplify all of our contributions.

我们公开所有的投资信息，并努力让我们的工作重点和战略完全透明。最后，我们致力于与其他正在应对这些挑战的伙伴开展合作，并仔细评估形势来确定我们的角色。毕竟，虽然我们的支出巨大，但这通常只是全球在这些问题上所投入的一小部分。因此，我们通过与伙伴们合作，让我们所有人的贡献都能产生最大的价值。

To illuminate how we think about our role, let me address our influence through the examples of three of the important priorities reflected in our new budget and our long-term goals: helping smallholder farmers thrive despite the effects of climate change; ending malaria; and helping U.S. schools make math instruction more effective.

为了说明我们如何看待自己的角色，请允许我以我们的新年度预算和长期目标所反映的三个工作重点为例，来说明我们的影响力：帮助小农户在气候变化的影响下获得发展、 消灭疟疾，以及帮助美国学校提高数学教学水平。

Agricultural adaptation: Going all in where the need is the greatest

农业适应：在最有需要的地方全力以赴

Our work in response to climate change is a great example of how we seek to prioritize the needs of the most vulnerable – and do all we can to get others to, as well.

我们应对气候变化的工作是个很好的例子，它说明了我们如何优先考虑最脆弱群体的需求，并尽己所能让其他人也这么做。

It’s a harsh reality that the communities that have contributed least to the climate crisis are already facing its most severe consequences. Nobody knows that more than smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, who are experiencing devastating floods and drought, shrinking growing seasons, and in some places even famine.

一个残酷的现实是，对气候危机贡献最小的社区正承担着最严重的后果。没有人比撒哈拉以南非洲和南亚的小农户们更了解这一点，他们正在经历毁灭性的洪水和干旱和生长季节的缩短，一些地方甚至出现了饥荒。

We’ve focused on agricultural development for 16 years, because it’s one of the most effective ways to help large numbers of people lift themselves out of poverty. I recently announced at the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference that we are accelerating that work with a $1.4 billion commitment over four years to help provide farmers with innovative tools and build more resilient food systems.

16年来，我们一直关注农业发展，因为这是实现大规模脱贫的最有效途径之一。我最近在2022年联合国气候变化大会上宣布，我们正在加速这项工作，承诺在四年内提供14亿美元，为农户提供创新工具，并建立更具韧性的粮食体系。

For years, leaders in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and other affected regions have been calling for dramatic funding increases for adaptation – that is, ways to adjust to changes in the climate, as opposed to preventing or mitigating climate change. These calls have been largely ignored. While US$632 billion was spent globally to combat climate change in 2020, just 7% of that went toward climate adaptation.

多年来，撒哈拉以南非洲、南亚和其他受影响地区的领导人一直呼吁大幅增加资金，以找到适应气候变化的方法，而非预防或减缓气候变化。这些呼吁基本上被忽视了。2020年全球用于应对气候变化的资金有6320亿美元，其中仅有7%用在了适应气候变化上面。

It’s not that the world hasn’t invested in agricultural innovation. It certainly has, with incredible advances in crop productivity over the last half-century. But shockingly little money has been spent to meet the needs of farmers in low-income countries – even by donor nations that have made public commitments to do so.

这并不是说世界没有投资于农业创新。在过去的半个世纪里，世界确实在这方面有所投资，作物产量大幅提升。但令人震惊的是，用于满足低收入国家农民需求的资金少得可怜——即使捐赠国已对此做出公开承诺。

For instance, the vast majority of research and development has targeted the major crops common in wealthy nations rather than crops that millions of African families depend on. Rich countries will invest in better approaches to producing the crops that their populations rely on whether or not the Gates Foundation gets involved. But that’s not true for cowpeas, millet, cassava, or direct-seeded rice.

例如，绝大多数农业研究和开发针对的是富裕国家的常见作物，而非千百万非洲家庭赖以为生的作物。无论盖茨基金会是否参与，富裕国家都将把投资用于他们自己国民所依赖的作物，而非豇豆、小米、木薯或直播水稻。

We fund a huge volume of research – in particular through CGIAR, a network of research centers around the world – on how these crops can be produced and livestock reared more reliably, prolifically, and sustainably. We also make investments to make sure that innovations meet the needs of smallholder farmers – for example by answering low-income countries’ call for better data and modeling to predict climate events.

我们资助了大量的研究——尤其是通过国际农业研究磋商组织（CGIAR），一个由世界各地的研究中心组成的网络，研究如何更可靠、更高效和更可持续地生产这些作物和饲养牲畜。我们还确保创新能满足小农户的需求，例如，响应低收入国家的呼吁，提供更好的数据和模型来预测气候事件。

One important component of our agricultural adaptation strategy is to prioritize the needs of women. Gender equality is a Sustainable Development Goal of its own – but it’s also a vital path to meeting all of the other goals. Diseases can’t be eradicated if researchers don’t understand the unique ways they impact women and girls; innovative sanitation technologies won’t effectively serve a community unless people of all genders are comfortable using them; anti-poverty measures won’t make a dent unless they capture the millions of women earning a living outside the formal economy.

我们农业适应战略的一个重要组成部分就是优先考虑女性的需求。性别平等本身就是一项可持续发展目标，但它也是实现所有其他目标的重要途径。如果研究人员不了解疾病给妇女和女童带来的独特影响，疾病就无法根除；如果不是所有性别的人都愿意使用， 那么创新的环境卫生设施也无法有效地为社区服务；如果减贫措施不能覆盖数以百万计的在正规经济部门之外谋生的女性，这些措施就无法取得成效。

With this in mind, several years ago we made a commitment to design strategies and investments to effectively serve women and girls. Nowhere is this more relevant than in agriculture, since women comprise half of smallholder farmers worldwide. We are using our influence to put women farmers at the heart of solutions – whether that means equal access to credit and markets, farming implements tailored to them, or training to equip them to be mentors and leaders in their communities.

考虑到这一点，我们在几年前承诺制定战略和投资，有效地为妇女和女童服务。这一点在农业领域最为重要，因为妇女占了全世界小农户的一半。我们正在利用我们的影响力，将女性农户置于解决方案的核心位置——这意味着她们将平等地获得信贷和市场机会、为她们量身定制的农具，或能够帮助她们成为社区领袖的培训。

Perhaps most importantly, we’re doing our agriculture work in partnership with regional and local institutions. While we’re sometimes accused of advancing corporate interests or pushing technologies that countries don’t want, in fact we work at the request of national governments and regional bodies like the African Union (which has developed a continent-wide climate strategy) and the African Adaptation Initiative (which helps governments get climate financing and coordinates advocacy efforts). We invest a lot to build up institutions, so that they can lead the work altogether. And we’ll use our influence to press others to step up too.

也许最重要的是，我们正与区域性和地方性的机构合作开展这项工作。虽然我们有时被指责服务企业利益或把技术强加给国家，但事实上，我们是应各国政府和区域机构的要求而开展工作的，如非洲联盟（已制定了一项覆盖整个非洲大陆的气候战略）和非洲适应倡议（帮助政府获得气候融资并协调倡导工作）。我们投入很多资源支持不同机构提升能力，以领导和协调这些工作。此外，我们还将利用我们的影响力推动其他组织采取行动。

Malaria: Equipping partners to end the disease

疟疾：支持合作伙伴终结这一疾病

By the turn of this century, malaria had been eliminated in wealthy nations yet still killed nearly a million people a year – mostly young children – in poorer countries. So we joined with other organizations working to reduce the burden of this preventable disease, dedicating billions of dollars to the effort. This past September, the foundation announced a US$912 million commitment over three years to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

到本世纪初，疟疾在富裕国家已被消灭，但在贫困国家每年仍有近百万人因疟疾死亡， 其中大多数是儿童。因此，我们与其他组织一同致力于减轻这一可预防疾病的负担，并为此投入了数十亿美元。去年9月，盖茨基金会宣布将在三年内向抗击艾滋病、结核病和疟疾全球基金提供9.12亿美元。

Our biggest contribution over the years, though, may not have been the money. In 2007, Melinda posed a challenge to the global health community: Rather than merely reduce the threat of malaria, why not totally eradicate it? From there, we plotted backwards: What actions would get the world to zero cases? Of those, which would be unlikely to happen if we didn’t play a role?

然而，这些年来，我们最大的贡献可能并非资金。2007年，梅琳达向全球健康界发起了一个挑战：与其仅仅减少疟疾的威胁，为什么不彻底根除它？我们从这个目标进行倒推：什么行动能让世界实现零病例？这些行动中，有哪些是如果我们不发挥作用就不太可能发生的？

Our influence hasn’t really been about what we can make happen. (Our contribution to the Global Fund, after all, is only about 6% of what it raises from all donors.) It’s about how we help others make a huge impact.

我们的影响力并不在于我们自己能做什么，（毕竟，我们对全球基金的捐款只占它筹资总额的约6%。）而在于我们如何帮助他人产生巨大的成效。

We have funded R&D for and gotten private-sector companies to focus on not just the next generation of diagnostic tools, bed nets, and medicines, but also the generation after that. That includes work agreements we’ve reached with pharmaceutical companies so they produce drugs that benefit low-income populations, even though those products don’t have high profit margins. We’ve helped some countries export their knowledge – like China, which eliminated malaria within its borders and now lends its expertise to African countries – and helped others strengthen measurement systems and analytic capacity so they can use data to tailor malaria interventions to local needs. And we fund the training of African entomologists and national malaria program staff, so that there will always be a vibrant community of experts to see the fight to the end.

我们为私营企业的研发提供资金，让它们不仅关注下一代诊断工具、蚊帐和药品，而且放眼再下一代的创新工具。这包括我们与制药公司达成的工作协议，让他们生产能够帮助低收入人群的药物，即使这些产品利润率不高。我们还帮助一些国家分享他们的经验——比如中国在境内消除了疟疾，现在又将其专长与非洲国家分享——我们还帮助其他国家加强测量系统和分析能力，让他们能够利用数据因地制宜地制定疟疾干预措施。我们还资助培训了非洲昆虫学家和国家疟疾项目工作人员，这样就会有一支充满活力的专家队伍将这场战斗进行到底。

All along, Bill, Melinda, and I have spent a lot of time trying to convince leaders to dedicate more money to fighting malaria and other diseases that disproportionately affect people living in poverty.

一直以来，比尔、梅琳达和我花了大量时间试图说服各国领导人投入更多资金，用于防治疟疾和其他不成比例地影响了贫困人口的疾病。

By all accounts, the fight has been a big success. While malaria deaths have increased during the pandemic, from 2000 to 2020 the death rate dropped by nearly 50%. We’re optimistic that cases could fall even more over the next few years, thanks to several promising innovations in the works, including a preventive therapy that uses monoclonal antibodies and ways to rid areas of the most deadly mosquitos (by killing them with sugar bait traps or using genetic technology to stop disease transmission).

这场战斗取得了公认的成功。虽然疟疾死亡人数在新冠大流行期间有所上升，但从2000年到2020年，疟疾死亡率下降了近50%。我们乐观地认为，得益于正在进行的几项大有前景的创新，包括使用单克隆抗体的预防性治疗，以及消灭最致命蚊子的方法（通过糖饵陷阱杀死它们或使用基因技术阻止疾病传播），疟疾病例在未来几年还会进一 步下降。

Despite this progress, people have raised good questions about our work. They ask whether resources spent on specific diseases would be better spent on improving overall health systems. They suggest that eradication is an unrealistic goal. And they critique the foundation for playing what they see as an outsized role.

尽管取得了这些进展，人们还是对我们的工作提出了很好的问题。他们问，用于特定疾病的资源是否可以用于更好地改善整个卫生系统。他们认为根除疟疾是个不切实际的目标。他们还批评基金会在他们看来扮演了一个过大的角色。

We agree that funding health systems is important, so we do that too, in Ethiopia, India, and other countries. We agree that calling for malaria eradication is audacious, but we knew that any lesser goal would mean continued suffering.

我们认同投资于卫生系统很重要，所以我们在埃塞俄比亚、印度和其他国家也确实这么做了。我们也认同根除疟疾是个大胆的目标，但我们知道，任何退而求其次的目标都将意味着持续的苦难。

On the size of our role, I agree, in a way: It’s not right for a private philanthropy to be one of the largest funders of multinational global health efforts. Countries should fully fund them. But consider the example of the World Health Organization. Where we share common goals, like eradicating malaria, we fund WHO programs. As countries have decreased their contributions, we’ve become the second-largest donor. I’d love it if many more governments would pass us on that list – because that would mean more lives saved.

关于我们的作用，我在某种程度上认同：一个私人慈善机构成为全球健康跨国行动的最大资助者之一是不对的。各国政府应完全资助这些行动。但以世界卫生组织为例，在我们有着共同目标的领域，如根除疟疾，我们资助了世界卫生组织的项目。而随着各国减少捐款，我们已成为了其第二大捐助方。我希望有更多政府在这个名单上超越我们，因为这意味着更多生命将得以挽救。

Math education: Raising expectations for engaging instruction

数学教育：推动各方携手改善教学效果

When scores on the U.S. National Assessment of Educational Progress were released in October 2022, we saw the greatest decline in fourth- and eighth-grade math scores ever captured in the test's 50-year history. We didn’t need those scores, however, to know that in too many K-12 classrooms, math is a chore and not a joy – and a proven barrier to high school and even college graduation, especially for Black and brown students. That’s why we are investing US$1.1 billion over four years to improve the quality of math instruction for all kids.

当美国国家教育进展评估（National Assessment  of education  Progress）在2022 年10月公布结果时，我们看到四年级和八年级的数学分数出现了这项测试50年历史上的最大滑坡。然而，我们不需要这些分数就能知道，在太多K-12教室里，数学都是件苦差事，而非乐趣——事实证明，数学还是高中乃至大学毕业的障碍，尤其是对黑人和棕色人种的学生来说。这就是为什么我们将在四年内投资11亿美元以提高面向所有孩子的数学教学质量。

As a share of U.S. education spending, that’s not a huge amount – only about one-sixth of what’s likely to be spent on public schools in Wyoming, America’s least populous state, over that time. But we hope it will make a big difference nonetheless.

作为美国教育支出的一部分，这并非巨额资金——在美国人口最少的怀俄明州，这个数字可能只占其公立学校支出的约六分之一。但无论如何，我们希望它能带来重大的改变。

Most educators say the math curriculum they’re given is not engaging, effective, or relevant to their students’ lives. They spend lots of time – of which they have so little – adapting the materials or creating their own. Yet educational publishing companies have not done nearly enough to understand what teachers want and students need and improve what’s available.

大多数教育工作者表示，他们拿到的数学课程不吸引人、效果不好，和学生的生活也缺乏关联。他们花了大量时间——本来他们的时间就少得可怜——去适应教材或创造自己的教材。然而，教育出版公司在了解教师想要什么、学生需要什么以及改进现有内容方面做得还远远不够。

So we are. We’ll be funding teams of school districts and universities to conduct research, which they’ll define, on what works and what doesn’t in elementary and middle school math instruction. Educational technologies that give teachers more tools in their toolkit will be part of that effort, as will new approaches to teacher training and even the variety of math courses offered.

所以我们希望在此发挥作用。我们将资助学区和大学的团队进行他们所需的研究，发现哪些做法能够改善小学和中学的数学教学，而哪些不能。为教师提供更多教学工具的技术、教师培训的新方法，甚至各种数学课程，都将是这一工作的组成部分。

With a consortium of other funders, we will partner with a small number of innovative publishers and educational technology companies to develop amazing new products; evaluate their efficacy in improving motivation, engagement, and persistence; and make the best of them available to as many classrooms as possible.

我们将联合其他资助者，与少数几个创新的出版商和教育技术公司合作，开发优秀的新产品，评估其在提高积极性、参与度和持久性方面的效果，并让尽可能多的教室用上其中最好的产品。

Our ultimate goal is not just to foster the development of better, more engaging math materials that serve the students furthest behind standards, but also to prove to major publishers that there’s a market for those materials. If we do our job well, publishers will take it upon themselves to create better resources too.

我们的终极目标不仅是促进更好、更吸引人的数学教材的开发，为那些远远落后于标准的学生服务，而且还要向大出版商证明这些教材是有市场的。如果我们的工作做得好， 出版商也会有动力自主开发更好的教学资源。

The promise ahead

满怀希望，不懈努力

While we’re optimistic about the potential for progress, we’re also realistic. When it comes to the issues we work on, this is the toughest period in the foundation’s history. And the challenges the world faces aren’t likely to be resolved in 2023.

虽然我们对未来取得进展感到乐观，但我们也很务实。就我们致力于解决的问题而言，现在是基金会历史上最艰难的时期。而世界面临的挑战也不太可能在2023年得到解决。

That means we’ll be looking for even more effective ways to accelerate innovation and spur action toward the global goals.

这意味着我们需要寻找更有效的方法，为实现全球目标加速创新、激励行动。

That doesn’t mean we will set the agenda of multilateral organizations like WHO and the Global Fund. Nor will we decide which malaria drugs regulators approve, or what research scientists pursue. We won’t decide which seeds farmers plant in their fields or which curriculum a school system adopts or whether a bed net is hung in a home.

这并不意味着我们将为世界卫生组织和全球基金等多边组织制定议程。我们也不会决定监管机构批准哪些疟疾药物，或者科学家该进行哪些研究。我们不会决定农民在田里种什么种子，也不会决定学校系统采用什么课程，更不会决定人们的家里是否挂蚊帐。

Our role is to ensure that decision-makers – be they school board members or cassava growers or health ministers – have the best possible options to choose from and the best possible data to inform their decisions. But make no mistake: Where there’s a solution that can improve livelihoods and save lives, we’ll advocate persistently for it.

我们的作用是确保决策者——无论是学校理事会成员、木薯种植者还是卫生部长——都能拥有最好的选择，以及最好的数据作为他们的决策依据。但有一点是肯定的：只要有改善生计和挽救生命的解决方案，我们就会对此进行不懈地倡导。

We won’t stop using our influence, along with our monetary commitments, to find solutions – as long as hundreds of thousands of children die of malaria just because of where they live, as long as students of color and low-income students don’t have equitable educational opportunities, and as long as famine threatens entire populations.

只要还有成千上万的儿童仅仅因为他们居住的地方就死于疟疾，只要有色人种学生和低收入家庭学生得不到公平的教育机会，只要饥荒还威胁着脆弱人群，我们就不会停止利用我们的影响力和我们的资金去寻找解决方案。

We see so much promise ahead, and we’re excited to play a part in realizing it.

我们对未来充满希望，也很高兴能为实现这些希望尽一份力量。

Mark Suzman, Chief Executive Officer

马克·苏斯曼

盖茨基金会⾸席执行官