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$29 million grant recipient highlights ongoing needs

Howard Lake | 6 August 2009 | News

The grant of $29 million from the Bill Melinda Gates Foundation to Concern Worldwide has prompted Concern’s CEO to remind people that it still needs to raise a lot of money to provide services.

The €29 million grant will support child health initiatives in six developing countries.

“We’ve been trying to make the point that this grant from Gates is for a very specific purpose –maternal and child health – for a specific number of countries; six. And we’re working in 28 countries,” said Tom Arnold, Concern’s CEO.

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“The money they will be providing to us over the next five years represents less than 5 per cent of our budget. So we still need the resources to implement the other 95 per cent,” he said.

Arnold saw the grant – the biggest individual sum Concern has ever received – as a tribute to his organisation’s track record in developing innovative responses to the effects of poverty.

Since it was set up by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his wife Melinda a decade ago, the foundation has dispersed more than $20 billion in grants to improve health and combat poverty around the world and enhance educational opportunities in the US.

Three years ago, Warren Buffett – the second richest man in the US, after Gates – joined forces with the foundation, and has contributed more than $5 billion since then, with the promise of five times as much in the future.

Gates and Buffett, each of whom have a personal fortune estimated at more than $50 billion, expect to give away most of their money during their lifetimes.

www.concern.net

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