Malaria: Equipping partners to end the disease
疟疾：支持合作伙伴终结这一疾病文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/14079.html
文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/14079.html
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.文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/14079.html
文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/14079.html
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。文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/14079.html
文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/14079.html
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?文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/14079.html
文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/14079.html
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？文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/14079.html
文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/14079.html
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
