Gates and Buffett Should Fight Human-Rights Abuses

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

To the Editor:

Warren Buffett has had a moment of revelation, leading him to decide, contrary to his long-held position, not to wait until he dies to be charitable, but instead to give $31-billion to Bill Gates for him to be charitable with (“Contribution to History,” July 20).

Perhaps Mr. Buffett followed the profound admonition of Nathan Strauss, one of America’s greatest and boldest philanthropists: “What you give to charity in health is like gold. What you give in sickness is silver, and what you give in death is lead.”

Whatever his decisive motivation, Mr. Buffett’s magnificent gift will, I hope, motivate other rich Americans to give substantial portions of their net worths not in their wills but during their lifetimes.

Mr. Buffett and the Gates Foundation have indicated their priorities: to fight disease, promote education, and alleviate poverty in the developing world. Without in any way denigrating Mr. Buffett’s gift or the good works he and the Gateses seek to do, permit me to suggest an addendum that they and other philanthropists should consider.

As important as it is to address a range of social ills, it is critical that philanthropists confront not only the symptoms of those problems but the root causes that allow them to continue, for instance, human-rights abuses. As the Nobel Prize laureate Amartya Sen has said: “No substantial famine has ever occurred in any country with a relatively free press.”

Take the example of Sudan. In Darfur, dysentery and starvation are rampant in the refugee and displaced-persons camps where more than two million people now live. Children who have no homes cannot worry about getting an education — they worry instead about getting firewood to cook the evening meal. Unless Sudan becomes a country that is more open and stable — with basic human-rights protections, there will be no way to address the myriad health and social calamities suffered by the people there.

Mudawi Ibrahim Adam runs one of the only human-rights and development organizations still functioning in Darfur — and he has been jailed three times by the Sudanese government for promoting human rights. Silencing Mr. Mudawi helps the government to continue its repression. Supporting people like Mr. Mudawi is an effective way for philanthropic investors to make sure resources can reach those facing health emergencies in that country.

In Sudan and many other countries, efforts to achieve sustainable development and the alleviation of poverty and disease are inextricably linked to the struggle for human rights. Support of local and global human-rights advocates and organizations should be a critical part of philanthropists’ strategies if they are to truly create a world where all people can enjoy health, security, and dignity.

William D. Zabel
Partner
Schulte Roth & Zabel
New York

Mr. Zabel is also chairman of Human Rights First, an international advocacy group, and serves on the board of several national charities.

To the Editor:

Amid the good news in your article about Warren Buffett’s remarkable pledge to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, there was one paragraph halfway through the story that sent up a bright red flag for us: reference to an announcement, made by the Gates Foundation in April — even before the Buffett gift was made public — that it plans on “expanding the number of causes it supports to include agricultural projects and financial services for the poor.”

Not that there is anything inherently wrong with funding either of these areas: far from it. These are both extremely important issues in the developing world.

Rather, what worries us is the disturbing possibility that the Gates Foundation, like so many of the nation’s other big foundations, will succumb to the temptation of trying to do too many things at once, and that, in the process, it too will evolve into a cluster of relatively autonomous programmatic departments or divisions, each with its own agenda, its own strategies, its own staff, and — most pernicious of all — its own budget.

When this happens, what was once a big foundation becomes, in effect, a confederation of smaller foundations, each with the resources of a smaller foundation and the reflexes of a big foundation — a potentially lethal combination.

After all, what sets the biggest foundations apart from the tens of thousands of other foundations in this country is their capacity to do really big things. That is their one true comparative advantage in the field: They have more money than the other guys and so they can take on the really big challenges that the other guys can’t. Like global health. Or public education.

And yet, time and again, we have seen the big foundations trade away that unique comparative advantage by spreading themselves too thin. Moreover, history tells us that as a foundation adds priorities, it almost inevitably recruits additional staff — and more staff means more bureaucracy, which in turn tends to stifle the entrepreneurial spirit and creativity that truly are the lifeblood of effective philanthropy.

Fortunately, your story suggests that Patty Stonesifer, the Gates Foundation’s chief executive officer, is at least aware of the risk, having e-mailed the current Gates grantees that the Buffett money will be used “to go deeper in our current strategies.”

Yet there is no question that Mr. Buffett’s extraordinary gift will intensify the pressure on the Gates Foundation to broaden its focus to new areas.

Your story closes with Bill Foege’s admonition to the leadership of the Gates Foundation to be as humble in giving the money away as Mr. Buffett has been in turning his money over to them. That humility will be especially important in deciding how many priorities to pursue — no matter how much money the foundation has.

Paul Jellinek
Stephen Isaacs
Principals
Isaacs-Jellinek
San Francisco