USAID: Gates to U.S.: Global Health Aid Is Not Doom-and-Gloom FrontLines - December-January 2009-10
When Bill and Melinda Gates visited health projects around the world-not just their own projects but those of USAID and other U.S.-funded groups-they met people who had overcome disease and hunger and gone on to improve their lives.
But when they returned home to the United States, all they saw in the news were doom-andgloom reports of epidemics, famine, failed programs, and misery. So in 2009, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched the Living Proof Project to tell positive stories of U.S. foreign assistance that rarely make the evening news or the front page of newspapers.
The Living Proof Project runs video clips on its Web site that are not only about Gates projects but about USAID and other groups funded by the U.S. government or private donations. These include the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the U.N. Global Fund, and the President’s Malaria Initiative. A short ad campaign also ran on television.
"Living Proof is a multimedia communications effort that uses the power of individual stories to show the success of investments made by America to developing countries for global health," said Cyndi Lewis, senior program officer in global health at the Gates Foundation.
The project began with a two-year investigation into American attitudes towards foreign aid, using polling and focus groups. "Americans have the perception that projects that USAID and the Global Fund and even Gates take on are insurmountable," Lewis said in an interview with FrontLines.
"We listened to many regular and influential Americans, and what we heard was a lack of reporting on progress-lack of connection to individuals. But that’s not what you see in the field where there is so much progress and results."
So the Living Proof Project worked with USAID and other aid groups in its first year of operation "to get compelling stories on individuals and whole regions-not just lives saved but improved and empowered," Lewis said.
Positive stories can be compelling if they focus on heroic figures who overcame terrible problems. Lewis points to the "Barbershop" video from the Living Proof Project Web site as an example.
"There is a power in storytelling that goes beyond huge numbers saved-these don’t stick as well as when people learn of a woman living with HIV/AIDS in Ethiopia who is not just surviving but thriving-she is a barber and teaches customers AIDS prevention," she said.
"We learned Americans want to hear these stories-not just hear a number of lives saved."
The Gates Foundation felt that "the success of global health is an untold story in America," said Lewis, from the eradication of smallpox in 1977-which saved America $17 billion in vaccination costs-to progress against polio, malaria, and the current fight for maternal and newborn child health.
The big challenge has been how to make people pay attention to positive news.
In the past, advocacy groups displayed photos of dying children and images of people living in dire and depressing circumstances to educate the public. "But when people invest year after year, tax and private donations, they want to know the return on investment," said Lewis.
To overcome what Lewis called "a staggering communications gap," the Living Proof Project tells about aid delivered through Gates; USAID; the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition; the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization; the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; and other programs.
