Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corp. and the world's richest man, gives away billions through his family foundation to underwrite health programs from childhood vaccines in Africa to AIDS prevention in Indian truck stops.
Bill Clinton is shorter on spending power, but the former president is rich with powerful friends and skilled in the art of negotiation, enabling him to broker deals for AIDS-drug discounts and persuade governments to do more for patients.
Though the two men have rubbed shoulders for years at elite gatherings around the world, it has only been in recent months that the two began joining forces. Mr. Gates has funded a “small” grant ($750,000) to the Clinton Foundation to explore the best ways to roll out expanded access to drugs for HIV/AIDS.
Recently Mr. Clinton spoke at Mr. Gates's Microsoft Government Leadership Forum in Capetown, South Africa, and the two travel with Mr. Gates's wife, Melinda, to Maseru, Lesotho, to visit sites including the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative Clinic.
And Messrs. Gates and Clinton make their highest-profile joint appearance yet when they share the podium at the XVI International Conference on AIDS in Toronto, addressing thousands of scientists, activists and media on how to fight the threat of HIV. Behind the budding partnership of opposites is a potential synergy between two leading figures in the new breed of philanthropists.
[Excerpt of an article by Marilyn Chase, The Wall Street Journal]
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