I wanted to share a message I received from our good friend Billy Shore. The letter below reflects the kind of thinking and vision we need to see in the world. It doesn’t negate those efforts — like long-lasting insecticide-treated nets — that help reduce suffering and malaria in the short-term, but it is a view we need to keep as well. We can solve these big problems — it will take many different kinds of efforts to get there.

Dear Jacqueline,

Last week Melinda Gates used the E word.  I want to share what she said, and what Bill Gates said too, and why it is so directly related to our childhood hunger strategy at Share Our Strength.

It is an article of faith among experts in malaria research to never talk about eradication of the disease, but instead to set goals for controlling it.  In dozens of conversations I’ve had over the past three years every doctor, professor, vaccine developer, and pharmaceutical executive I’ve met has warned against even thinking about eradication. (more…)

Here is a hopeful article about progress on a malaria vaccine. The Gates Foundation has focused hundreds of millions on a vaccine, given the long-term effectiveness of such an intervention if successful. Theirs has been a high-risk but also very high-return strategy and underscores the importance of approaching problems from various angles. Cross your fingers on this one.

Applications for the Acumen Fund Fellows Program are due by noon EST on Wednesday, October 24. If you are interested in an extraordinary opportunity in venture philanthropy and social change, please apply here. For more information, visit our opportunities page – or even better, check out the words of one of our current fellows on the google.org blog.

This past Thursday and Friday I joined the Global Water Challenge for a learning forum on Innovative Financing for Water and Sanitation. The Global Water Challenge (GWC) is a committed group of leading organizations that have joined forces to catalyze change in the water and sanitation sector with members from non-profit organizations, foundations, academia and major corporations, including Coca-Cola, Dow and Cargill.  (The local NBC station did a short piece on the meeting – you can see it here.)

Partnership sounds great, I think we can all agree, but what does it really mean? With water being one of the most complex and politicized development issues, how feasible is it that distinct groups across sectors could sit in a room together and find meaningful ways to collaborate? My first question would be, can we even agree on anything? Despite these questions, Acumen Fund recently joined the GWC to do our own part in this effort to “join forces.” This was made easier by the fact that we had already been working closely with the GWC and several members. What I discovered through the course of this two-day meeting was that partnership, for this group, was not just a pretty word.  

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