corporate community and those that think that we have to deal with this, we don't have to be stopped by. so as we take a look at going forward about what we are changing, we are looking at everything that is implicated in how we have better talent, stronger talent, to the federal workforce, making sure that the latinos are part of that. .. from leaders

series. an hour. >> i thank you so much. delighted to be partnering with bank of america and to kick off this series, i can't think of anyone better or more timely to have a conversation with than bill gates. so appreciate you joining us this morning and to all oaf you who are here.you we're going to start off in a i think's unlikely but absolutely fitting topic, which is the subject of ebola and the crisis in africa and potentially beyond africa. recently foundation announced it is donating $50 million to help with the response. of us think about what's happening with the disease and the spread of it, we have to ask questions

that really relate to leadership, right? health it's our global institutions, whether it's individual countryings and their country -- countries, and lack thereof to respond. mr. gates, obviously you spent the last, really, more than a decade, focused on global health challenges in africa. here comes a big crisis of the sort that we've been worrying about and warning about. role of you feel the individual leadership and global indership comes into play this crisis? >> well, i think ebola is a great example of where the world really needs to come together. the three countries where this place have had a lot of civil war, very weak health systems. ebola had never shown up in west africa before. did take a while for

people to understand, okay, we've got ebola here. and even that eventually what we saw was a very unique ebola epidemic. there have been over a dozen, and they've all been, you could the like bushfires, with right, a little bit of pressure, getting medical workers in, people to not with the people who have it or as they're burying the people who die from it. bigyet here it got into a city, and it is an incredible challenge. is now putting their resources in. went over there, personally the and saw the head of cdc, and he's the one who really said, no, this is a different ebola epidemic. and now everybody is galvanizing to get behind this. impressiveis quite

what's being pulled together. i do think we'll be able to get control.r we need to maker sure it doesn't -- make sure it doesn't spread out to other parts of africa. then we need to get it under control in these three locations. there's a pretty clear road map done.t needs to be our foundation is particularly involved in a few of the locations, like in nigeria, been a bigre's investment in polio eradication of havingole idea expertise and how you orchestrate medical personnel, polio resources and the helpfulssons are very here. in fact, the reason that it got stopped in two of the countries, nigeria and senegal, is because people with polio were pulled acted quickly, money from us and others was pulled in. bethe next few months will tense. every day, there's tons of e-mails flying about how can people -- quickly

can people get in, can we get the tools. there's an overall approach now. the u.s., as usual on world up, both is stepping in terms of the science, the understanding and now the u.s. logistic ability to get supplies in and create field hospitals that are critical. >> mr. gates, what an honor to have you here. had a great conversation last year at bank of america. booze thisere's no time. but you say that -- morning.8:00 in the [laughter] >> it's 5:00 somewhere. mobilizing nowd and we're going to get this under control. story of has a great politico this morning, the ebola leadership gap. how late everyone has been, the private sector, governments. why did it get so far out of control? >> well, i suppose it's -- that's the easiest article to there's awhen

financial crisis or -- well, an algorithm for predicting the future, all new things, that article is great. the -- i'm pretty impressed with how quickly people have stepped up on this. ideally, you would have decent in all ofalth care africa. it's far better today throughout because of a variety of things, including money that's build up systems. u.s. aid has gone in to build up systems. these three countries, partly because of civil war, have not gotten there. so because ebola was never seen in this area before, and because health care system didn't report it, and because burial practice, the touching of disease, makes the

spread far more forcefully, it percolated long, you know, in the may, june time frame. you have anjuly did urban case. then, in august, the numbers started to jump up. and that's when everybody said, okay, this is quite, quite unique. we had done a grant in july. we did one in august. got the nigeria thing organized. late augustid- to before the world saw this as a very unique ebola crisis. joe moore, why should you care? what does it mean to the u.s. now and in coming years? >> well, epidemics like this, far better to stop them before they spread to lots and lots of countries. and the tragedy here is both the ebola deaths but also the civil unrest. what happens when you have people panicking about an

epidemic is that the entire health system shuts down. die of people will malaria, pneumonia, not having hospital services. type ofh toll from this shutdown is because of a huge diseases. and so we should all care a lot that that does not spread to and lots of locations. if the right thing hadn't been done in nigeria to catch it in bud, you'd have a city with people and you'd have a complete disaster and lots and lots of panic. so i think we should care about the people there. economies there. and the u.s. impact is the one the cdc that can figure these things out, playing a central role. that can go inmy there with the logistics and the medical understanding. lookingnew tools were

at in terms of vaccines and -- and diagnostics, it's all stuff that the primary funder, in general the particular things they can beke pulled together pretty quickly u.s. investment and innovation type things. for me, this is one of the great causes, one of the two causes that harcourt foundation has picked. lives, making sure that not only do you get rid of the death but kids can grow up in a healthy way, you know. to us, it's a very central thing. but the key actor is the united states and the investments that, in a way, this country has stood behind for literally decades. >> can i ask you about institutions? you talked about the infrastructure that already existed on polio, thanks in part to the work that you've done, when able to swing over there's a crisis and to respond. obviously not all of these countries have that infrastructure.

look at awhen you crisis like this, do you see it as being one where you have to, effect, preposition your success? you need infrastructure, you function,tutions that versus politics? where do politics come into play, both in successfully dealing with something like this or not, as the case may be? every countrylike to be self-sufficient so that, both in terms of running a good primary health care system and funding a good primary health care system, it's all okay and they just participate in regional bodies that have deal withpacity to these things. africa, of all the places in the furthest behind on being able to do that. through aid, health and health africa have improved very, very dramatically. death is downood by over half in africa as a the year 2000 and now. acceleration.n

the economist just had a good piece on this, on the fiveeration over the last years, as people got more focused on this, one of those measurable millennial development goals. i think there's probably about years here where there will be some countries in africa that them up.o help lift the ongoing rate of bad health there is very high. over half a million kids a year malaria. and ebola isn't going to get to malariaf something like or hiv, because i do think we're stepping up and we'll respond. those things, you know, through medical research, through generosity, those things will also come under control. how you'll be able to move all these african countries middle-income status. it won't happen overnight. slowly but surely

africa is no longer much of an outlyer as it was in the past. >> this is your first interview on ebola since the outbreak. but you've been engaged in washington on global health for years. people assume washington is it'sly broken down but your view that washington actually has shown leadership press hasn't really covered. the phenomenal generosity of the united states aid budget towards health issues is the best in the world. you can look at that broadly. it in terms of the hiv, the money which came in a republican administration with bipartisan support. increased under this administration. fortunately, it's one of the few that there really is a strong consensus on, getting -- these kids

helping support polio erad yaition. erad -- eradication. we get senators or congressmen to go out to africa happened with malaria, to see what we've been with health systems, people come back very proud of the uplifting that's taking place there. there hashas been -- been consensus and the money has gone up as people have seen the success. of those very measurable things. this isn't, oh, they're in tough shape. we'll just shovel money over there and maybe something good will happen. you can in this case, follow the vaccines and you can follow the polio cases. ebola, we won't be able to run -- i guarantee

you it would be very different. ago,ng there a few weeks will the president invoke all the resources of the u.s.? fact he did. i was thrilled about that. >> finally. >> no, i wouldn't say finally. there some other government who took decisive action before we did? data really clear? was there somebody, a cdc equivalent, who flew in and personally toured all these things? whosere someone else research will give us the vaccine to make sure this doesn't happen again? the u.s. is the leader in being able to move into areas like help out. we have a lot of other countriesthat do -- countries to step up. that u.s. military capability, being able to move gettingly as they do, people in and out, and being able to say to medical workers, there will beere,

an evacuation capable -- that's why the recruitment is giving us the where we can get treatment centers. if the treatment centers are full and you're saying to go back into your community. anyone.to touch then the epidemic -- then they'll move around. infect lots more people. the reputation of the treatment center is that's where you go, there is capacity, it increases your chance of surviving, and if you do, your body isay dealt with will match cultural processes. when we get there, this will start to drop. we're not there yet. the u.s. capability, the polio resources, that's why i think we are going to get on top of this. thing i'vethe nicest heard about washington in a long time. [laughter] >> susan? was going to be my

point. historic lows at a in its approval ratings. we didn't think it could go any lower. it's an election year. there might be consensus around aspects of global health. but in reality, support for foreign aid -- and your team has a lot about how to change that -- there's a diminishing feel on the part of to remain engaged internationally. how do you fight that, number 1, and number 2, are there ways in bech you found your goals to frustrated by the gridlock here in washington? >> well, the gridlock is very concerning. i think there's a lot of issues, know, immigration, increasing energy on the budget. are things that i think should be happening. investment inour medical research should be allowed to tail off like it has to. allowed so even in some of these great

bit worrying. i don't think the term foreign aid is going to be easy to salvage. if people just think of that term, then all the money that we the cold war to back our bad guys, where we didn't really pay any attention, measure any outcome check,ter we sent that you know, to see, did he build good palaces, was he having a time? [laughter] probably -- probably not redeemable. talking about this aid and the that can bees, successful. that's why getting as many americans, not just politicians, but as many out to see this in action, having them come back ourtell the story, that's best tool, is the truth about the reality of how tough things yet how much they're improving. over a quarter of the aid budget related.-health

basicmalaria, polio, health infrastructure. we're asking that there be a the vaccinease in money out of that budget. there's a new round of raising for this lobby that finances the vaccine for these very poor countries. when you talk to people in those and you talk about literally saving lives for very small amounts of money and getting these countries on a path to self-sufficiency, then strong response. story.have to tell that and it's got to compete with other budget priorities. want to involve all of you in this conversation about lessons from leaders. colleaguesy politico have microphones. ast signal if you have question. mr. gates, who are a couple of leaders who you admire, living or dead?

inwell, there's leaders science, people who really like richards out, fineman or people who work on ofcines, you know, tons people working on hiv vaccines. there's leaders in business, buffet, whowarren got, you know, a certain approach they take that is pretty amazing. there's product innovators, like steve jobs was, where he gets and does ancept fantastic job. there are people out in the field, you know, whose names we won't know. there are several hundred people who stayed in the ebola-affected countries and continued to do the work, put themselves at great risk because medical the most likely to be infected, because they're person is --hen a when a person's health is quite aating, including bit of bleeding as they're getting very sick. many domains of

heros. i've gotten to work with people like warren buffet. sat and talked to and learned from them. mandela, i got to meet a few times. he was trying to get the aids acknowledge itto and step up and do the right thing. it's pretty amazing, the great scientists or people in the field or leaders that i get to sit and talk with. >> so to take warren buffet or nelson mandela, can you point to that would help young people that want to be managers,ers, great great innovators? >> well, mandela told people something they didn't expect to him, which is that revenge and evening the score of they'd been treated was not in their interest and that even way it was certain completely unjust, that the country had to move forward, it to embrace everybody who lived there, it had to figure out how to have an economy that lifted everybody up. you would not have predicted

such a nonviolent transition of literally -- the building that the government that theis the one most popular song that the nc had was how they were going to up that building. mandela worked in the building that he was saying about blowing of times.ly hundreds that's somebody getting you to step back and think, okay, we're in this together, in a way thatwithout his presence, just wouldn't have happened. >> so as much as you've had this on institution building, that's what i wanted to ask you, is about this question of where play, bothmes into in a positive sense, like mandela, but i'm thinking about and pakistanmpaign in the last few years, and the politicsat comes when defeats institutions or even investment of resources. what can you do about those work?nges to your

>> well, we definitely run -- in the polio campaign, we ran into a huge number of problems. groups thaterrorist have kind of a nihilistic view towards medicines or vaccines, that both nigeria and pakistan, literally targeted polio vaccinators and gone out and killed them. continuect that people to volunteer to step out and get those vaccines out there is truly -- a truly amazing thing. we think we're very close to on polio. we haven't had any violent events for the last six months. we do have unrest. in nigeria is a real problem. the army in pakistan actually went in and cleared the area where kids weren't being vaccinated. virtually all the cases in pakistan -- literally the majority of all the cases in the in this one part of

pakistan, the fact that the army we'lld it actually means have a bump-up in cases as those kids move around. gives us a chance to get in and have access. so we're optimistic, despite terrorist groups taking this on, expected.uldn't have against polio erad raition -- eradication, it seems wild that you'd pick that as something to against. the nonterrorist leaders have been our partners in trying to get the word out. a question right here. yourself.roduce routersa, thompson foundation. as you say s infrastructure is absolutely critical in getting diseases under control. are you rethinking how you're going to direct your funding in order to help build more primary health care systems? and