????為了改善全球婦女和女孩的生活狀況，梅琳達?蓋茨表示，“僅僅口頭談論這個話題是不夠的。”面對由女性首席執行官、高管和商界領袖組成的聽眾，她直言，人們必須得心甘情愿地調動起他們的聲音、財力和人際網絡，才能產生影響力。“我們必須站起來說：‘我愿意為這些事情提供資助。’”

????梅琳達?蓋茨是一名慈善家，也是比爾和梅琳達?蓋茨基金會（Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation）的聯合創始人。在上周三于加利福尼亞州拉古納尼格爾舉行的《財富》最具影響力女性峰會（Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit）上，她接受了《財富》（Fortune）資深編輯帕蒂?塞勒斯的采訪。

????作為全球最為活躍的民間基金會之一，蓋茨基金會最近在美國《科學》（Science）雜志上表示，他們準備把婦女和女孩放在“未來發展的中心地位”。

????梅琳達表示：“我在基金會的工作之一就是實地考察。”她談到了自己是如何離開城市中心，代表基金會去考察鄰近的鄉村和貧民窟，并與那里的女性交談。梅琳達稱，這一系列旅途讓她更好地了解到這些女性的生活狀況，以及蓋茨經濟會應當如何對她們的日常生活產生更大影響。梅琳達意識到，她的基金會還沒有為廣大女性做出很大的貢獻。

????梅琳達表示：“作為一個基金會，我們做的是一些本質上比較封閉的工作”，她指的是基金會在根除瘧疾和小兒麻痹癥上的工作。“我們沒有對女性和她們的家庭產生預期的影響力。我們需要讓基金會更多地投入這方面的工作，還需要鼓動全世界更多地投入這方面的工作。”

????蓋茨基金會起初是一個研發機構，工作重點在于大規模疾病防治。梅琳達表示：“我們也需要參與配發藥品的工作。”僅僅研發出治療疾病的疫苗或藥劑是不夠的，如果病危兒童的母親根本拿不到這些疫苗或藥劑的話，這些工作就沒有意義。她說：“我想要確定我們對婦女和女孩們做了正確的事。”

????梅琳達還談到了她認為最需要優先做的事：計劃生育和避孕用品。她表示，計劃生育可以改變一名女性的生命軌跡，乃至她孩子的人生。她說：“我們認為有大約1,400萬女孩在18歲以前就結婚了”，而產婦死亡率“在全球仍然居高不下”。

????女性能否計劃好懷孕的時間和頻率，對女性的自我健康和經濟發展至關重要。蓋茨基金會的目標之一，就是為研發新型避孕用品提供資金。梅琳達特別提到了華盛頓大學（Washington University）一位科學家的研究工作，這位科學家試圖研發一種能像薄荷糖一樣在舌頭下融化的口服避孕藥。

????除了關注婦女和女孩之外，蓋茨基金會還在努力幫助應對大規模疾病，并于近期捐助了5,000萬美元用于對抗埃博拉病毒。基金會的領導者之一蘇?德斯蒙德-赫爾曼預見了即將來臨的危機，并說服了比爾和梅琳達投入資金進行早期防治。梅琳達表示，在尼日利亞，一家蓋茨基金會贊助的小兒麻痹癥診所被改造成了一家緊急的埃博拉病毒診所，并且已經幫助該國將埃博拉的病例數控制在了僅僅19例。

????當《財富》雜志總編輯艾倫?默里問到蓋茨基金會是如何同世界衛生組織（World Health Organization）等政府機構合作時，梅琳達談到了政府和民間合作的必要性。比如說，聯合國兒童基金會（UNICEF）、蓋茨基金會和華盛頓大學在類似的研究和衛生倡議問題上有著不同卻互補的成果，利用這些差異，各組織能夠促進彼此的工作。

????梅琳達表示：“在政府與民間的合作中，智慧的碰撞正是我們想要的。”（財富中文網）

????譯者：嚴匡正

????In order to improve the lives of women and girls around the world, “it’s not enough to just to talk about women and girls,” Melinda Gates says. Speaking directly to an audience of women CEOs, executives, and business leaders, she said that people have to be willing to use their voice, dollars, and network in order to make an impact. “We have to be willing to stand up and say, ‘I’m willing to fund some of these things.'”

????Gates, a philanthropist and co-founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, was interviewed on Wednesday by Fortune senior editor-at-large Pattie Sellers at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit at Laguna Niguel, Calif.

????The Gates Foundation, one of the most active private foundations in the world, recently declared in Science magazine that it aims to put women and girls “at the center of development.”

????“One of the things that I’ve gotten to do for the foundation is really to travel,” Gates said. She talked about how she would break away from city centers during her trips on behalf of the organization to explore nearby villages and slums and speak to women who lived there. The side trips brought her a greater understanding of the lives they lived, she said, and how the Gates Foundation could have greater impact on their day-to-day existence. Gates realized her foundation wasn’t doing a lot for women at scale.

????“As a foundation, we do pre-siloed work,” she said, indicating its work on eradicating malaria and polio. “We weren’t getting the impact we wanted for women and their families,” she said. “We needed to move the foundation to do more of this work. We need to move the world to do more of this work.”

????The Gates Foundation was started as a research and development organization, with a focus on mass diseases. “We also need to do delivery,” Gates said. It wouldn’t be enough to create a vaccine or cure for a disease if the mothers of at-risk children wouldn’t allow its distribution. “I want to make sure we do the right thing for women and girls,” she said.

????Gates also spoke about her number-one priority: the importance of family planning and contraceptives. Family planning, she said, can change the trajectory of a woman’s life and the lives of her children. “We think about 14 million girls are married before the age of 18,” she said, and the maternal mortality rate is still “huge around the world.”

????The ability for a women to plan when and how often to have children is crucial for her health and key for her economic growth. One of the goals of the foundation is to fund research into new types of contraceptives. Gates spoke about a Washington University scientist who is looking to develop an oral contraceptive that would dissolve under a woman’s tongue like a breath mint.

????In addition to the focus on women and girls, the Gates Foundation is still looking to help tackle mass diseases, and recently gave $50 million towards the fight against Ebola. Gates Foundation head Sue Desmond-Hellmann saw the crisis coming and convinced Bill and Melinda Gates to put their money towards early prevention. Gates spoke about how a Gates Foundation-funded polio clinic in Nigeria decided to convert to an emergency Ebola clinic, helping that nation to keep its Ebola rate to only 19 cases.

????When asked by Fortune managing editor Alan Murray how the Gates Foundation works with governmental organizations like the World Health Organization, Gates spoke about the need for public-private partnerships. For instance, UNICEF, the Gates Foundation, and the University of Washington might have different, but complementary, takes on how similar research and health initiatives, and use those differences to improve each other’s work.

????“Intellectual pushback is what you want in a private-public partnership,” she said.