Grantmaking During Global Turmoil: The Rockefeller Foundation’s President Dr. Rajiv Shah
Originally broadcast on November 2, 2023
Dr. Rajiv Shah, president of The Rockefeller Foundation, served on the National Security Council and elevated the role of development as part of our nation’s foreign policy while he was USAID Administrator. Dr. Shah, our guest this week on “Conversations of Health Care,” explained that the war in Gaza requires a need to balance defense, diplomacy and development.
His new book Big Bets: How Large-Scale Change Really Happens, takes readers inside past efforts to secure federal funding for humanitarian aid. These lessons are even more important as President Biden is now asking for $105 billion for global conflicts.
From COVID vaccines to climate change, Dr. Shah is at the center of it all. In 2021, The Rockefeller Foundation awarded $440 million in grants to tackle these issues and many others. Hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter ask Dr. Shah to explain how he and his team make big bets during a time of global turmoil.
Conversations on Health Care features in-depth discussions on health policy and innovation with industry newsmakers from around the globe. https://www.chcradio.com
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Mark ( 00:04 ):
Where would you spend the money, if you ran a foundation that gave out 440 million a year? What big
bets would you make in order to create a better world? Our guest tackles those questions each day as
he embraces a philosophy of bold change. He says he rejects the idea that incremental steps are the way
to go.
Dr. Rajiv Shah ( 00:24 ):
If we want to solve these types of problems in a fundamental way, we have to aim higher, we have to be
bold, and we have to make big bets that are grounded in new innovations that might be risky and
experimental, that are grounded in unlikely partnerships like the Republic and Democratic ones we just
talked about.
Margaret ( 00:42 ):
Dr. Rajiv Shah is the president of the Rockefeller Foundation, which works with its grantees and partners
to reverse climate change and advance human opportunity. It's a mission made even harder given
current challenges, and we'll ask him all about it.
Dr. Rajiv Shah ( 00:55 ):
I just respectfully would suggest we don't think experts have all the solutions at all. In fact, I firmly
believe and have learned in the depths of Port - au - Prince after the earthquake in Haiti and Eastern
Congo in the aftermath of conflict and war on the streets of Mogadishu after we were able to clear
terrorism from that community for a while, that the best solutions actually come from local
communities you're serving.
Margaret ( 01:19 ):
And this is Conversations on Health Care.
Mark ( 01:29 ):
Well welcome Dr. Shah to Conversations on Health Care.
Dr. Rajiv Shah ( 01:33 ):
Thank you for having me, Mark and Margaret, it's great to be with you.
Mark ( 01:36 ):
First, congratulations on the release of the new book, Big Bets: How Large Scale Change Really Happens.
But before we get into the details of your approach, let's start with the crisis in the Middle East. There
are urgent efforts underway to prevent humanitarian disasters in Gaza. You've also said Israel is justified
in responding to the Hamas terrorist attacks. You've talked about the need to balance defense
diplomacy and development. How is this balancing act looking to you right now?
Dr. Rajiv Shah ( 02:07 ):
Well, I served on the National Security Council in a number of different settings and through a number
of different crises, and one thing I learned is when you have a situation like this where there are
extraordinary emotions on all sides, it is important to look to the long - term of how to protect national
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security. And in this case, the long - term national security interest of Israel and by extension of the
United States involves taking into account all of defense diplomacy and development including
humanitarian affairs. And so I applaud efforts that are clearly underway by the United States to help,
and I suspect these are more private than public, to help Israel see the opportunity it has to create an
opportunity for humanitarian service in Gaza and in the region to potentially secure some type of
humanitarian corridor to enable people who would otherwise be under siege, especially women and
children, to have safe passage.
( 03:09 ):
And to conduct the war, which as I've said is absolutely justified in the context of a horrific and
condemned terrorist attack against Israel by Hamas to conduct that campaign against Hamas in a
manner that looks to create long - term security by continuing to protect those who are otherwise
vulnerable and who are innocent of wrongdoing. And that's hard to keep in mind. The press and the
media and the political attention is often very focused only on rockets and guns and tanks. But the
reality is all three elements of national security need to be prioritized in this moment if we're to avoid a
larger catastrophe throughout the Middle East.
Margaret ( 03:54 ):
Well, Dr. Shah, you've led the US Agency for International Development known as USAID during the
Obama administration. You saw it through some tough budget challenges. Today, President Biden is
now asking for $105 billion for Israel, Ukraine and national security efforts including humanitarian
support. And this is going to be tough. Your book touches on how you navigated such congressional
fights in the past. From your perspective, how does the President win this fight?
Dr. Rajiv Shah ( 04:29 ):
Well, I think you win this fight in two ways. The first is what I think is I'd call the standard approach,
which is having a thoughtful and comprehensive package that doesn't require going back to Congress
over and over and over again. Like say what you need, say it once, be clear about the strategic intent
and explain as President Biden did from the Oval Office, why he believes it's in America's absolute
national security interest to execute this package. The second though is something I suspect President
Biden understands as well as anyone, which is make it personal. I've learned in my time in Washington,
especially on items that are partisan and heated, and I write about this in my book, an episode where I
said a few things in a congressional testimony that really upset the then Speaker of the House, John
Boehner and many conservative Republicans.
( 05:17 ):
But I went on a listening tour and I learned about the values and the perspectives and the upbringings of
faith - based Christian conservative Republicans in the Senate and the House, and ultimately built a set of
authentic relationships based on vulnerability and dialogue and getting to know each other in a deeper
way that I think really made a big difference in reestablishing America as the world's humanitarian
leader. And I think that same approach is worth pursuing now, even though by the way, it's easy to
watch television and say, oh, you must be kidding me, that no one is that serious about service here.
This is all posturing. It's not. It might be for a few, but for the majority of people who will cast a ballot
and cast a vote, there's a deep commitment to some type of public service involved here and an
opportunity as President Biden well knows to get to know folks even if they're on the other side.
Mark ( 06:15 ):
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That's such an excellent point. Let's turn to the focus of your book, and that's the need for big bets in
philanthropy. And first of all, the book was very thought - provoking and congratulations on releasing it. It
got released last month. But I'm wondering if you could explain for our audience your approach and why
you think it works.
Dr. Rajiv Shah ( 06:39 ):
Well , it's grounded in a basic idea that too often when we look at tackling big social challenges in the
United States or around the world, we settle for very incremental or very piecemeal efforts because we
think that's the best we can do. And frankly, we sometimes think doing a little bit of good is good
enough. And the truth is, if we really want to solve some of the challenges we face, the widespread
prevalence of chronic disease in the United States that made Americans sitting ducks to COVID mortality
or the reality that still tens of millions of children every year are not getting simple vaccines that could
save their lives.
( 07:17 ):
If we want to solve these types of problems in a fundamental way, we have to aim higher, we have to be
bold, and we have to make big bets that are grounded in new innovations that might be risky and
experimental, that are grounded in unlikely partnerships like the Republic and Democratic ones we just
talked about. And that ultimately are focused on measuring results and staying persistent through many
decades. And I've had a chance to learn from others that this approach can really work. And so that's
what we're trying to take and implement here at the Rockefeller Foundation today.
Margaret ( 07:48 ):
Well, I want to stay on the subject of your book for another minute because it really was fascinating, but
we saw the Chronicle of Philanthropy article about the book and it said, and I'm quoting here, "Even as
MacKenzie Scott and the Ford Foundation popularize unrestricted giving, the Rockefeller Foundation
maintains an experts - know - best approach to grant making." But you have a chapter in your book called
Give Up Control. Tell us how you hold and balance those to what might seem like a dichotomy in
positions. But tell us your approach to this.
Dr. Rajiv Shah ( 08:23 ):
Well, it's not a dichotomy because we don't actually believe experts know best. I have a chapter on the
Ebola crisis where I talk about how we fought Ebola in West Africa and when the world and the CDC
expected 1.6 million cases, we ended up with 30,000. When we expected cases throughout the United
States, we ended up with only two and neither were caught and there was no contagion inside our
borders. The reason for that was we listened deeply to local communities and we listened to local
community groups. They crafted some innovative new solutions that changed what was possible at
fighting Ebola. The same is true in our efforts to expand access to energy to a billion people that still live
in the dark. It is true that we worked with a set of innovators and technologists and scientists for more
than a decade to create these rural mini grid structures that our solar panels and batteries and artificial
intelligence based remote energy and battery management systems tied to smartphone payment.
( 09:20 ):
It's a pretty cool technological innovation, but at the end of the day, the only reason we can scale it up is
because, I don't know, 20, 25 partners came together, mobilized almost $12 billion, activated
collaborations in 22 countries and in every one of those countries, these are community - based efforts.
We just announced the building of solar metro grids in Eastern Congo, a place ravaged by war where I've
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had a chance to sit with kids that have just been through unspeakable horrors, both boys and girls. And
simply there's no electricity there, therefore there's no jobs and no real economy. We're now building
this out with local partners in the lead so that those kids have a brighter future. I just respectfully would
suggest we don't think experts have all the solutions at all. In fact, I firmly believe and have learned in
the depths of Port - au - Prince after the earthquake in Haiti and Eastern Congo in the aftermath of conflict
and war on the streets of Mogadishu, after we were able to clear terrorism from that community for a
while that the best solutions actually come from local communities you're serving.
Mark ( 10:29 ):
We couldn't agree with you more as a community organization. I was really drawn to the chapter on
pivot in part because we all had to do this hard pivot in 2020. Our organization had seen a 100,000
people the year before, but that next year, 800,000 people crossed our threshold, so we had a lot to
think about. And you really write about this, which I found really compelling. You called it a hard pivot,
and the Rockefeller Foundation started the Pandemic Prevention Initiative. Tell us about their goal and
how's it working?
Dr. Rajiv Shah ( 11:04 ):
Well, the hard pivot that I talk about in the book was really in the first quarter of 2020 when it became
clear COVID was going to be a problem in the United States. If you think about it, and I was with Dr.
Tedros in Europe just about a few days before they had their big meeting that documented COVID as an
international concern pandemic. If you think about it, at that moment in time, the US was considered
absolutely the best prepared to handle a global pandemic anywhere in the world. And when you look
retrospectively, we had the most excess mortality of any country on earth. I think with 4% of the world's
population, we had 16% of the world's deaths. And the reason for that was our public health
infrastructure was not up to the task. And the biggest reason in the first quarter of 2020 was we had no
testing. We could look retrospectively as to why, but the bottom line is we had no testing.
( 12:03 ):
The Rockefeller team said, "Hey, we're supporting health efforts all around the world, but we are going
to pivot our work to focus on building out a testing infrastructure in the United States that is at the scale
necessary." And we proposed what we call the one three thirty plan to get from 1 million tests a week to
30 million tests a week. We succeeded in that effort by investing in very unique public - private
collaborations, including with the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island and all across the country to
scale up antigen testing. And it made a huge difference. And the reason that chapter is so important to
me in the book is often when you're doing social service work, it is hard actually to pivot. It's hard to
change what you do, it's hard to adjust your strategies, and you get criticized for making changes. And I
wanted to honor the teams on the ground in Navajo Nation in Los Angeles, all across our country that
actually pivoted on a dime's notice and made a big difference in the trajectory of this disease in the
United States.
Margaret ( 13:07 ):
Well, Dr. Shah, I think we still have a lot to learn from COVID and hopefully we'll be more focused on
learning and less focused on criticizing anybody's efforts along the way. I couldn't agree with you more,
but we learned as a world community as well as a country, and I know you had the experience of being
one of six global leaders appointed by the UN to review the world's capacity to prepare for and respond
to global pandemic threats. This is back in 2015, I think, when you look back based on that learning, how
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were that group's plans and recommendations aligned with how we would look today at what we need
to do differently as a world community in the face of pandemic?
Dr. Rajiv Shah ( 13:53 ):
Well, that panel was the UN high level panel on pandemic prevention. And what's interesting is it was
one of maybe three or four panels after the Ebola pandemic that made a set of recommendations. There
have since been other efforts after COVID. They always say the same thing. The first and foremost thing
is having the capacity to scale up diagnostics, testing, and to have surveillance and shared data in a
platform that allows the world to see the disease where it is, learn about it fast and prevent it from
spreading. That's always step number one. That's always, by the way, the cheapest part of the plan, and
it's the part that despite multiple pandemics, our public sector governments have simply not delivered a
solution on. And we can talk about, that's why we created the Pandemic Prevention Institute and then
ultimately turned it into a program that we run here at the Rockefeller Foundation.
( 14:47 ):
The second element is actually having the tools and technologies ready, stockpiles manufacturing
capacity, different types of contracting structures so you can quickly scale up having the vaccines and
the treatments required for different types of pandemics. That we're now doing a much better job on
coming out of COVID with some of the contracting instruments that are at play in some of the efforts
built in Europe via the World Health Organization and its partners. And a third core component, and
people give this a lot of different names, is investing in public health infrastructure in places where it's
weak. It's weak in parts of Africa, for example, where you're spending $40 per capita on an annual basis
on healthcare, naturally you have huge surveillance, diagnostic and treatment gaps. And they happen
right in those places where there's the most intersection between zoonotic pressure and population
pressures, which are likely to generate future pandemics.
( 15:46 ):
Investing in global health infrastructure and then frankly, as we learned in the United States, we have a
lot of communities right here at home where we do not have adequate medical and public health
infrastructure, and there's a lot of misinformation out there, and we have to do a better job with
building that infrastructure here at home. All these panels say the same things. It's about political action
after the spotlight of a pandemic has gone away to sustain the investments needed to prevent the next
one. And I fear that that's not happening to the level we need it to happen across all three of these
elements, and it's why the Rockefeller Foundation is committed to continuing to build collaborations to
fill that gap.
Mark ( 16:26 ):
Well, I wonder about... I would just pull the thread a little on that. Certainly the leadership component
for a public health agencies is so important. We've had a whole range of speak on, Dr. Eric Topol and
many others who really criticize CDC for their lack of framing up the problem and executing on it. What's
your sense of, have they been able to turn the corner or is this still in their rearview mirror? And they're
not prepared as every expert tells us, it's just not COVID. We're going to have pandemic after pandemic
and we need to be prepared.
Dr. Rajiv Shah ( 17:02 ):
I would agree with those experts. We are not prepared. I think the CDC made some significant mistakes
around COVID, including around testing and not collaborating with other countries and relying on a self -
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created test that turned out to have a basis in a faulty reagent. I think there were other mistakes about
frankly relying on perfect testing, which is what I call PCR testing, even if it's slow and expensive as
opposed to recognizing fast, quick, even if imperfect or less sensitive data and the role that those tests
can play.
( 17:37 ):
It took a year to put in place an antigen testing regulatory infrastructure that could scale and be cheap
and fast and empowering of our people. There's a lot more to do in the United States just to be
prepared for the next pandemic. And I know the CDC is now making some changes. I fear they're not
prominent enough at this point, so it's important that you and I and all of us that have some role to play
here, stay on task. Because as you point out, especially with climate change, we are going to see more
pandemics and we're going to see more infectious disease threats in places where we haven't expected
them in quite some time like malaria in Florida and Texas, and we need to be better prepared.
Margaret ( 18:19 ):
Well, we couldn't agree with you more about the testing comments that you made, especially in those
long months between March and December before any vaccine was available that was essential and the
delays in getting results of course. Or just the time it took to get the results was very problematic on our
way to the rapid tests. But there's testing and then there were the vaccines, and you write about the
need to jump first in a situation, and you given an example of the need to change the international
vaccine distribution landscape. We'd love to hear more about that. Take us through that story.
Dr. Rajiv Shah ( 18:55 ):
Sure. Well, this is really at the beginning of the book because I learned how to make big bets at the
hands of Bill and Melinda Gates when I had the chance to work with them as they had read a newspaper
article that said, "Look, 600,000 kids every year die of rotavirus, but none of them are in the United
States." And the Merck was getting ready to roll out a rotavirus vaccine back then, but only in the United
States, not in the places where the kids were dying. And it led to years of exploration around how can
you ensure that every child, there are about 105 million children born every year, every child born
anywhere has full access to the vaccines that can prevent easily preventable diseases from affecting
their childhood and worse yet ending their life? And in order to do that, we had to not only ask simple
questions, Bill kept asking how much does it cost to vaccinate a kid because we wanted to study that
deeply.
( 19:53 ):
But then multiply that by the 104 million kids, 105 million kids, so we knew the total cost, but it also
required understanding why there was no adequate manufacturing supply for large scale, low cost
immunizations. And ultimately we invented together with dozens of partners all around the world, I
think the world's first big social impact bond and immunization bond that allowed European countries to
fund a global effort to rethink the vaccine manufacturing space and allowed GAVI, the Global Alliance
for Vaccines to pay back those countries after it had delivered successes. And that immunization bond
really did help transform the global market. We built a supply base in India and other places that were
large scale, low cost, and it allowed us over time to immunize about 980 million kids and save 16 million
child lives.
( 20:50 ):
And to me, having sat in communities and talked to mothers and fathers who've lost a child from a
simple disease and basically malnutrition, knowing that that effort helps save those lives is I think one of
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the most profound contributions that's been made in philanthropy and in the broader sense of just
helping people and both very proud of it, but it's also an instructive roadmap for how to make big bets
in the future.
Mark ( 21:17 ):
I want to talk a little bit about being proud of the work that you do and the Rockefeller work that goes
on around the globe. And maybe talk a little bit about branding. How important do you see branding as
part of the overall strategy of the foundation? Because while many of us know the name of the
foundation, I'm not sure it's known across every community. Talk to us a little bit as a leader, how
important it is to have those conversations, but also make sure that those that are reached know the
impact that the foundation's made.
Dr. Rajiv Shah ( 21:57 ):
Well, I appreciate that. I ran USAID as well, the US Agency of International Development under President
Obama. And in that setting, branding was exceptionally important because part of America's
commitment to do the humanitarian work it does is to make sure that communities see and then have a
better impression of America our values and how we project our capacity to lead around the world. I'd
say at Rockefeller it's a little different. We have been around for 110 years. We've thankfully earned two
Nobel Prizes, one for the invention of the yellow fever vaccine, another for the Green Revolution, which
moved a billion people out of hunger and extreme poverty in the sixties, seventies, and early eighties.
And to me, those accomplishments can speak for themselves. We don't actually need to promulgate our
brand. What we do need to do is help people understand our values.
( 22:52 ):
Because if you look even, you asked about COVID earlier, we were able to make grants to partners in
Cape Town and Stellenbosch, for example, that documented the first Omicron variant of COVID and
made the sequencing and data public around that for the world to learn probably four or six weeks
before the CDC did the same thing. People have to know that, okay, we're making those investments
and we're making them public because it's in the broader interest of humanity to be able to protect
itself. And so they have to know your intention and they have to be able to trust you, especially when
you're in the sensitive space of investing in and sharing data. And so knowing our values is important,
but promoting our brand is probably something we don't really have to do as much as I remember
having to do -
Mark ( 23:43 ):
How would you frame that up for other organizations? I was thinking about you as giving advice to many
of us in the field, and while the Rockefeller... You probably don't need to push it, but what's your advice
for people who are down doing that work in the community levels? What's the role they have and
responsibility they have to really communicate out across the schism that existed in our society?
Dr. Rajiv Shah ( 24:11 ):
I would say you have an opportunity to over communicate. And the reason that's so important, I write
about this in the chapter in the book on the Haiti earthquake and its response is people really do want
to be on the side of right, and they want to do good in the world. And more importantly, they want to
believe that there are people out there with solutions that can solve these problems at scale. And when
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I led the Haiti earthquake response in 2010, it was the single biggest humanitarian catastrophe the
world had seen to that date.
[NEW_PARAGRAPH]220,000 people perished, unfortunately very quickly, and so many government
buildings had collapsed that there was almost no functional government in Haiti. And the reality was
President Obama said, "Look, just make sure we over - communicate what we're doing because the world
needs to see it's possible in this tragedy to save lives, to protect women, to feed children." And that
year, more American families gave to the Haiti earthquake response directly than watch the Super Bowl.
And to me, that's a testament to the fact that people want to do good, but they need to believe it's
possible. They need to see hope. And the partners you're speaking of are the ones that allow us all to
see hope and be optimists.
Mark ( 25:26 ):
Margaret, we tell people to be shameless propagandists to our doing this type of work, so important to
get that message out to the larger community.
Margaret ( 25:36 ):
Absolutely. Dr. Shah, you know we're coming to you today from not too far from Yale University here in
Connecticut. And I think many in our audience may not realize that 100 years ago, they're just
celebrating their centennial, Rockefeller supported the Yale School of Nursing in becoming the first
American school within a university to receive funding, to educate nurses, and educate to prepare
nurses in an educational model, not an apprenticeship model. And of course, there's a storied history
that sprungs from there over these past 100 years, and we're also coming from a community health
center. I think a little known fact in Dr. Jack Geiger, the late Dr. Geiger's biography, is that it was
Rockefeller Foundation support that he went off to Palala in South Africa and studied the model of these
community health centers and came back and the story is well known from there of the development of
community health centers. Is it still possible within Rockefeller to identify what we would call these
disruptive innovations or bright ideas and give them the time to come to fruition? Tell us about that.
Dr. Rajiv Shah ( 26:48 ):
Well, I'm so glad you mentioned both of those examples. It just warms my heart. We're so proud of
those elements of our history and we learned from them. And John D. Rockefeller, I call the book Big
Bets, John D. Rockefeller Senior called all of this scientific philanthropy. And the idea was find those
fresh, innovative solutions that have the ability to lift up humanity at scale. And when you invent the
model or study the model and how to replicate the model of community health workers and community
health centers, you're actually creating a public health infrastructure that can at scale affordably
maximize community health. And that is such an important achievement. We're constantly looking for
those types of solutions across our work. For example, when we look at chronic disease in the United
States, we're actually investing in a major partnership with the American Heart Association and
scientists across the country to study food as medicine, because we've seen dietary interventions in
certain communities actually consistently lower hemoglobin A1C levels and consistently change the
markers of pre - diabetes and diabetes in a country that's now spending $1.1 trillion a year on diet related
chronic illness treatment.
( 28:07 ):
And we think if you're going to solve that problem at scale, it's going to have to be diet. It's going to
have to be lifestyle, and it's going to have to be medical and community health interventions all working
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together, not just medical interventions after the fact. And so those kinds of big solutions, maybe it'll
take a decade to have the database we need to convince every insurance company in the United States
and Medicare and Medicaid and all the states applying for waivers to improve the nutritional offer to
patients that are at risk of chronic disease. We're willing to stick it out for that decade because we think
that's another innovation that could be transformational. And I hope your listeners will think about what
are the innovations that can be most transformational, not just for the few that are lucky enough to
have a lot of resources, but for everybody. And that's the sweet spot that we invest in every single day.
Mark ( 29:03 ):
That's one of the more exciting initiatives that you have underway, and I think it will be a landmark
intervention on your part, so congratulations. I know you're not one to shy away from controversy
history as it can be a double - sided, of course. And you've launched an internal investigation to
undercover more details about the foundation's involvement decades ago in the racist eugenics
movement. You've committed to reckoning with this history. Where does the review stand right now?
Dr. Rajiv Shah ( 29:32 ):
The review is at our archive center. The Rockefeller Archive Center is this incredible resource for all of
philanthropy. And look, I think it is absolutely the case that any involvement the foundation had 70, 80
years ago in the eugenics movement is totally inexcusable, absolutely condemned. And part of
condemning it is understanding exactly what it is, putting it out there and dealing with that as we go
forward so that these things never happen again. I would say thankfully, that's not just my perspective,
it's been a perspective at this institution for many, many decades. And we grapple with our history all
the time, positive and otherwise, and I think that's part of being a healthy, evolving, and modern
institution of any kind.
( 30:20 ):
That's a review that's underway at the archive center. It'll be public soon. I'm certain it will show that
the foundation had some involvement in studies that would qualify as eugenics, and that is absolutely
condemned, inexcusable, and wrong. In fact, when I led USAID, we did a similar review of our work
around the world in that context, and similarly came to the same type of conclusion. Unfortunately,
American medicine in a particular era had a lot of different scientists, institutions, academics and
foundations and government partners involved in that horrific field of research.
Margaret ( 31:01 ):
Dr. Shah, I know our time is short, but I must ask you speak about climate change and the foundation's
role, not just in easing climate change, but actually reversing it, a bold statement. Share with us how
you're moving forward with this. How can we turn back the clock?
Dr. Rajiv Shah ( 31:18 ):
Well, climate change is our next big bet, and it's our big bet because this institution for 110 years is
focused on vulnerable populations, and we think that's the single biggest threat to humanity from a
vulnerability perspective. We're looking at decreased agricultural production leading to 1.4 billion
people going hungry roughly twice as much as today. We're looking at almost two billion people in
coastal communities having threats to their source of livelihood and protein because of oceans and
ocean acidification, and I could go on and on. Our effort is focused firmly at reducing emissions and
protecting those that are vulnerable, and we prioritize those solutions that can do both. The biggest one
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we're investing in is one that I mentioned already, which is bringing renewable energy to the billion or
so people that still live effectively in the dark. They're consuming less power and less electricity than it
takes to power one appliance and one light bulb for the course of a year per person, and that's no way
to survive.
( 32:24 ):
What's the biggest risk though, is that they are going to walk up the energy consumption ladder by
consuming more coal, more heavy fuel oil and more diesel for generators. And we think that can be
replaced by the renewable energy technologies that are available today, but not accessible to them.
That's our biggest single effort, and we have many others underway, but I'm confident that as the world
starts to focus on the big bets that can both end the climate crisis and protect vulnerable people, the
ingenuity, the new solutions, the new science around how to do so will offer us a very exciting path
forward.
Mark ( 33:03 ):
Dr. Shah, thank you for joining us today. Congratulations on the new book and for your leadership.
Thanks to our audience, be sure to go online at chcradio.com, sign up for email updates. You can also
share your thoughts and comments about this program. Dr. Shah, again, thank you. Thanks to the staff
at the foundation and all the great work that you're doing.
Dr. Rajiv Shah ( 33:24 ):
Great. Thank you. Great to be with you today.
Mark ( 33:26 ):
Perfect.
Margaret ( 33:27 ):
Pleasure to talk with you. Bye - bye.
Mark ( 33:27 ):
That's great.
Dr. Rajiv Shah ( 33:27 ):
Bye - bye. Thank you.
Margaret ( 33:34 ):
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