Indian and international public health bodies have protested the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) decision to invite Melinda Gates, Co-founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to address the World Health Assembly as a keynote speaker.
The 67th edition of WHO’s annual global conference started in Geneva, Switzerland, on May 19.
According to a statement by four organisations – Peoples’ Health Movement, Third World Network, Wemos (Netherlands) and Health Innovation in Practice (Geneva) – this is the third time in the last 10 years that someone from the Gates Foundation has been an invited as speaker at the Assembly. Bill Gates was invited as a speaker in 2005 and 2011.
The statement called this decision by WHO “unacceptable”, adding that the Gates Foundation is the second-largest contributor to WHO, which receives 80 per cent of its funding from voluntary contributions from countries and private sources.
Contradictory stance “Gates Foundation’s munificence towards the WHO as well as towards many other global health causes is well-known. However, the Foundation’s investment policies that are clearly in conflict with global health are less well-known,” the statement said.
According to the public health bodies, the Foundation holds significant shares in McDonald’s (10 million shares – about 4 per cent of the Gates’ portfolio), and Coca-Cola (0.34 million shares, 14 per cent of its portfolio).
The statement said these highlight the Foundation’s conflict of interest and calls into question WHO’s decision to invite Melinda Gates. “It would appear that the WHO Secretariat is more beholden to private donors than to the member States that it is constitutionally mandated to serve,” the statement said.