Rotary International in Great Britain and Ireland

In 2009, Rotary International was set the US$200 Million Challenge. A generous US$355 million gift from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation would be given to Rotary if the organisation could part match with US$200m by June 2012, to be used in the fight against polio.

In January 2012, that challenge was met, nearly six months ahead of schedule. Rotary members in Great Britain and Ireland and all over the world over had succeeded in raising over US$200. As a result of the quick response, an additional US$50m was donated by the Gates Foundation.

The resulting US$610 million will directly support immunisation campaigns in developing countries, where polio continues to infect and paralyse children, robbing them of their futures and compounding the hardships faced by their families.

Click here to watch the video of Bill Gates setting the challenge   

The challenge came about shortly after meeting with incoming district governors from the four countries where the wild poliovirus is endemic, Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Pakistan. Bill Gates announced the new grant on Wednesday morning 21 January 2009 at the International Assembly in San Diego, California, USA.

“Rotarians, government leaders, and health professionals have made a phenomenal commitment to get us to a point at which polio afflicts only a small number of the world’s children,” Gates said. “However, complete elimination of the poliovirus is difficult and will continue to be difficult for a number of years. Rotary in particular has inspired my own personal commitment to get deeply involved in achieving eradication.”

"We are going to end polio now," affirmed Robert S. Scott, chair of RI's International PolioPlus Committee.

In response to the new $255 million Gates Foundation grant, Rotary will raise $100 million in matching funds. In November 2007, RI received a $100 million Gates Foundation grant, which Rotary committed to match by raising $100 million.

The $255 million grant is one of the largest challenge grants ever given by the Gates Foundation and the largest received by Rotary in its history. Rotary will spend the grant in direct support of immunisation activities carried out by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, which is spearheaded by RI and its partners, the World Health Organisation, the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and b. Rotary will distribute the funds through grants to WHO and UNICEF.

The participation of Rotary clubs and individual Rotarians in Rotary’s US$200 Million Challenge was crucial to its success. 

Polio eradication has been Rotary’s top priority since 1985, with more than $1.2 billion contributed to the effort. Gates praised Rotary for providing the volunteers, advocates, and donors who have helped bring about a 99 percent decline in the number of polio cases: “The world would not be where it is without Rotary, and it won’t get where it needs to go without Rotary."

RI Past President 2009/10 John Kenny said: "The final hurdle still is ahead. This grant shows that the Gates Foundation is just as committed as Rotary to ridding the world of this disease."

Gates also shared with the incoming district governors and Rotary leaders a story from his trip to India in November, when he held a nine-month-old girl afflicted with polio in his arms in a slum in East Delhi.

“She obviously didn’t understand why people were poking her legs and looking so serious. But she’ll never be able to kick a ball around, never be able to play hide-and-seek with her friends, because she has polio,” Gates said. “As I held Hashmin, I thought, We can end this.”

“We don’t know exactly when the last child will be affected. But we do have the vaccines to wipe it out,” he said. “Countries do have the will to deploy all the tools at their disposal. If we all have the fortitude to see this effort through to the end, then we will eradicate polio.”

In addition, the governments of the United Kingdom and Germany committed $150 million and $130 million to eradicate polio, which will not count toward Rotary’s challenge.

You can help bring an end to this crippling and life-threatening virus by joining your local Rotary club or donating to the campaign.