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Big Names Team Up On Tobacco
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Published: July 24, 2008
WASHINGTON - New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Microsoft founder Bill Gates said Wednesday they will together provide $500 million to fight tobacco use around the world, especially in developing countries where smoking rates are rising.
Bloomberg has already given $125 million to the cause and will provide $250 million more. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation said it will spend $125 million over five years, including a $24 million grant to the Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use that Bloomberg created in 2005.
"I believe a world in which everyone is aware of the destructiveness of tobacco and empowered to avoid it is within reach," Bloomberg said at an announcement in New York. "We just have to imagine it and then demand it."
It was the first public event Gates attended since he left Microsoft and turned his attention full time to philanthropic activities. He also said he was happy to defer to Bloomberg's leadership in the anti-tobacco campaign.
"We said, 'Let's design our work to be complementary to this,'" he said.
The Washington Post
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