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JUDY WOODRUFF: Back in 2015, the
United Nations made public 17
global goals to

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end poverty and hunger, increase
economic opportunity, and
promote gender equity by 2030.

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Those goals were extremely
ambitious. And to help world
leaders get there,

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the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation created and funded a
so-called Goalkeepers project.
This week,

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it pledged another $1.2 billion
toward that. But the foundation

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also reported that the world has
fallen far short in its
commitments.

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I spoke this week with
Melinda French Gates.

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And, for the record, the
foundation is a funder of the
"NewsHour."

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Melinda French Gates, thank
you very much for joining us.

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This report that you have issued
this year, when you look at it,

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I have to say it's pretty
discouraging, the foundation
acknowledging that,

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seven years into setting these
goals with regard to poverty,
malnutrition, health care, that
the

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world -- and I'm reading it --
is on track to achieve almost
none of them. What happened?

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MELINDA FRENCH GATES,
Co-Founder, Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation: Well,

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we were making huge progress as
a world pre-COVID, so progress
on poverty, malaria, childhood
deaths.

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But then COVID happened, and it
really set the world back, both
from the health

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shocks and the economic scarring
that's there because of what
happened to the world economy.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: Is that
the whole explanation?

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MELINDA FRENCH GATES: Well,
it's not the whole explanation,

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particularly on the one
related to gender.

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As I write about in the report,
on gender, the disease doesn't

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care about its biology. It
doesn't really care about what
gender you are. However,

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we had so much inequality going
on beforehand that it just
exacerbated those problems.

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Like, for instance, childcare
was right here in our face
during the

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pandemic. Women couldn't work.
The ones who could work online
-- some could, but many

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couldn't because of childcare.
And it was really, really tough.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: In the report,

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you discuss some new approaches
that you argue need to be taken.
I mean,

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can you explain in a nutshell
what that would be? Because you
all are deeply into these
issues.

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MELINDA FRENCH GATES: We always
learn. And you learn what can
work better.

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I think what we have learned on
gender is, the world has been
talking for a long time about

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empowerment of women. No, we
need to really make sure women
are in seats of power. We

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need to stop working on the
symptoms and work on the root
causes. The root causes have a
lot

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to do with norms in society. But
if and when we get women to the
very tops of corporations,

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the tops of parliaments, they
make different policies, they
set different agendas than men
set.

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And so we have got to work
on those types of issues.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: What kinds of
different policies would you say
woman would move on?

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MELINDA FRENCH GATES: Well, for
instance, in Rwanda, 60 percent
of the Parliament

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is women. They passed -- they're
a low-country income. They
passed paid family medical
leave.

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In the United States, we still
have no paid family medical
leave. That's a tragedy,

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when most dual-income families
will tell you that both are
working. And,

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if they have children, it is
very hard right now to find
affordable childcare,

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much less a woman who lives in a
remote rural setting. If she
wants to go run

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her vegetable stall, she's still
trying to find, where do I put
my children, right?

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It's difficult.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: So how do you
make that happen? This is
something we have been talking
about,

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it seems to me, for years and
years. How do you make it
happen?

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MELINDA FRENCH GATES: You get
enough people in the House and

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enough people in the Senate who
believe in this, and you pass
the right policy.

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And it can be done in the United
States. It has been done in
almost

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every other high-income country
in the world and many
middle-income

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and several low-income
countries. It's just time
something like that passes.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: That's something
we have talked about for a long
time. I mean, what was it,

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1992 was supposed to be the year
of the woman in American
politics. Here we are,

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it's 2022. Women are, what, 28
percent of the House and Senate.

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People are looking for
solutions. What's the solution?

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MELINDA FRENCH GATES: The
solution is to fund more women's
political campaigns and

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to help deal with the harassment
that happens when a woman goes
through political election.

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That is in the U.S. I would say
that's one of many things we can
do. But if you talk about

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around the world, we also need
to look at not just putting cash
in the hands of women, which was
done

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during the pandemic, thank God.
Cash was put out into societies,
low, middle, and high income.

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But we have to get it into the
hands of women and into a
digital bank account, because,
when you

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do that, she has full
decision-making authority over
the money. She can decide when
it's spent,

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how it's spent, whether it's
saved. She can build credit. So
we need to help women get along
much

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faster on this curve to actually
having true power in their
households and in society.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: In many of these
developing countries especially,

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do you not still have cultural
or religious tradition that
requires that the husband,

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the man of the family, be on
board before a woman does
something like that?

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MELINDA FRENCH GATES: But women
will also tell you that, once
they get a bank account and once
they

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start to have a little bit of
money, things change in the
household with their husband,

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because the husband is very
interested in having that income
for the family.

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So his view of her changes. Her
view of herself changes. If it
is in India,

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her view of her mother-in-law
changes. So there are absolutely
different cultural norms,

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tricky ones in
different countries.

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But I will also say, we have
cultural norms in the United
States. We still have bias in
the

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United States about having women
in positions of power. So we
have to look at those cultural
issues

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around the world and work in
very place-based ways to make
and create change. And we can.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: And in terms of
the United States and electing
more women to Congress, we
looked

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at this. Money is part of it,
but it's also many women
reluctant to step into this very
contentious

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line of work, and especially
now, when our politics can be,
frankly, just so raw and ugly.

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MELINDA FRENCH GATES: It's
true. It's difficult times.

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But I also know that women are
stepping up. And women can also
decide they're going to vote,

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and we are seeing record numbers
of women signing up to vote in

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this upcoming midterm election.
I don't think that's any
surprise.

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So there are lots of ways you
can stand up in our society and

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use your voice and use your
power and your decision-making
authority to change things.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: Last question
about the Gates Foundation; $53
billion, I think is right,

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in assets. You have an enormous
potential ability there to make
a difference.

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When the foundation was started,
it was you, it was Bill Gates.
The two

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of you were married. You are no
longer married. How is that
working? I mean,

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are you going to be able to
continue to do the kind of work
that you have done in the past?

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MELINDA FRENCH GATES: Well, we
have had the institution now for
over 22 years. My

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values are baked into that
institution. We have been doing
this work for a long time.

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I would say you know, the good
news is, even during the
difficult times behind the
scenes,

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we showed up and did our best.
And I know that I have this goal
of showing up and doing my best

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every single day. And I still
am. So, given that we could work
even when times were difficult,

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and we have been working well
together even during the
pandemic in the last year,

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I don't expect anything
to change about that.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: Melinda French
Gates, we thank you very much.

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MELINDA FRENCH
GATES: Thanks, Judy.