Bill Gates Country Quotations

Certainly I'll never be able to put myself in the situation that people growing up in the less developed countries are in. I've gotten a bit of a sense of it by being out there and meeting people and talking with them.

If you go back to 1800, everybody was poor. I mean everybody. The Industrial Revolution kicked in, and a lot of countries benefited, but by no means everyone.

Now, we put out a lot of carbon dioxide every year, over 26 billion tons. For each American, it's about 20 tons. For people in poor countries, it's less than one ton. It's an average of about five tons for everyone on the planet. And, somehow, we have to make changes that will bring that down to zero.

The Global Fund is a central player in the progress being achieved on HIV, TB and malaria. It channels resources to help countries fight these diseases. I believe in its impact because I have seen it firsthand.

Countries which receive aid do graduate. Within a generation, Korea went from being a big recipient to being a big aid donor. China used to get quite a bit of aid; now it's aid-neutral.

In low-income countries, getting to a health post is hard. It's very expensive.

I understand how every healthy child, every new road, puts a country on a better path, but instability and war will arise from time to time, and I'm not an expert on how you get out of those things.

Rich countries can afford to overpay for things.

By 2035, there will be almost no poor countries left in the world.

If you withdraw the incredible focus on polio, it will spread back, and in poor countries you'll get something like 100,000 cases a year. So by being very intense and getting the cases down to zero, what you do is you avoid all the future cases.

I don't believe in creating dynastic wealth. I don't really believe that in a society that aspires to be meritocratic and that believes in equality of opportunity - my kids have had advantage over 99 percent of the kids in the country...

The world is very disparate, in terms of the US using the most energy per person, and then the other rich countries - Europe, Japan, New Zealand - using about half of what we do, and then the world average being about a fifth of what we use, with China just now surpassing the world average.

Anyway, the US, as in most issues, is the best, has the best capability to lead, and really needs to lead. It doesn't [mean] that other countries won't pick different tacks and emphasize different things. In aggregate, they're almost half of the energy R&D. Europe, China, Japan - it's very important that they come along and contribute to these things.

I've been studying how quickly we can get energy out to the poor countries - a lot of which are in Africa - and how little progress we've made there. There's no more electricity today in sub-Saharan Africa per person than there was 20 years ago.

We [US] are the biggest per person, by a substantial amount, greenhouse emitters, and we give the most foreign aid, not per person but in absolute. This is another issue where hopefully we will take a long-term approach which, even though we sometimes have a hard time doing that, it's easier for us, as a rich country with this kind of scientific depth, than it is for the poor countries who will suffer the problems.

The US spends more on energy R&D than all other countries put together, and I personally consider it quite inadequate. In fact, I would have said we should more than double it, if I thought the absorptive capacity could scale up and if it was actually possible to get to that level.

If you believe that all men are created equal, then a child's death in some other country is no less tragic than in the United States.

This is not about trade, no one is a stronger supporter of capitalism and trade than I am. This is about sovereignty and whether a country has the right to set its own public health policies.

Making sure all our students get a great education, find a career that's fulfilling and rewarding, and have a chance to live out their dreams ... wouldn't just make us a more successful country - it would also make us a more fair and just one.

With the states release today of a set of clear and consistent academic standards, our nation is one step closer to supporting effective teaching in every classroom, charting a path to college and careers for all students, and developing the tools to help all children stay motivated and engaged in their own education. The more states that adopt these college and career based standards, the closer we will be to sharing innovation across state borders and becoming more competitive as a country.

Thanks to quality education, Israel is one of the most advanced countries in the world .. Israel is advancing in high-tech even more than other developed countries.

I do think this next century, hopefully, will be about a more global view. Where you don't just think, 'Yes, my country is doing well,' but you think about the world at large.

Over time, yes, countries will need to look at specific GMO products like they look at drugs today, where they don't approve them all. They look hard at the safety and the testing. And they make sure that the benefits far outweigh any of the downsides.

Middle-income countries are the biggest users of GMOs. Places like Brazil.

When a country has the skill and self-confidence to take action against its biggest problems, it makes outsiders eager to be a part of it.

In poor countries, we still need better ways to measure the effectiveness of the many government workers providing health services. They are the crucial link bringing tools such as vaccines and education to the people who need them most. How well trained are they? Are they showing up to work?

If you rely too much on the people in other countries and other companies, in a sense that's your brain and you are outsourcing your brain.

In low-income countries, the main problems you have is infectious diseases.

Some very poor countries run great vaccination systems, and some richer ones run terrible programs.

I think the positive competition between states in India is one of the most positive dynamics that the country has.

Microsoft is committed to playing its role by making a broad set of investments in the country. Just less than a year ago, when I met with the prime minister, we made some very concrete commitments about increased investment, and I'm pleased to see that all of those have come to pass and they've all been very successful.

Electronic mail has been a huge phenomena for us. It gives us a little bit of a closer feel. Even if somebody's office is in another building, you're always sending them messages. And even if they're off in another country it makes that easy. So, we