Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone else planted a tree long ago. – Warren Buffett

This #ThrowbackThursday I am reflecting on the Forbes 400 Summit on Philanthropy in 2013, where I discussed the importance of purposeful giving, and how the actions of one person can make a difference in the outcome of many lives alongside Warren Buffet and Bill Gates.

Reproductive health care, more than most issues, has been enormously shaped by individual billionaire philanthropists. Many of the critical breakthroughs in the field were philanthropy-funded, as are many basic services today around the world.

Bill Gates, through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Warren Buffett, through the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation are two of the biggest philanthropists, and leading providers of access to contraception worldwide. The Gates Foundation empowers women and girls to take charge of their own health, enabling them to make informed decisions about family planning and have access to contraceptive options that meet their needs, to reach the longer-term goal of universal access to voluntary family planning. The Buffett Foundation is the leading provider of family planning access for poor women in the U.S, and the the most influential supporter of expanding access to and conducting research on the contraceptive.

Philanthropy is essential for reproductive health care, as foundations, including my Wellbeing Foundation Africa can decentralise the definition and distribution of public health goods from the government, operate on a longer time scale than many businesses in the marketplace and elected officials in public institutions, and create frontline trusted programming which educate and influence community behavioural change to meet better health outcomes and achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

If you’re in the luckiest one per cent of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99 per cent. – Warren Buffett

📸📹: Forbes 400 Summit on Philanthropy, 2013