World Business

Michael Bloomberg is joining Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates in some effort to bridle. smoking in developing countries

by Alison Damast

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Michael Bloomberg and Bill Gates are about to become two of the global tobacco industry’s most formidable opponents. The billionaire duo represent to pump a combined $500 million—including $375 million in new funds—end 2013 to combat what public health officials have deemed a global tobacco epidemic.

The New York mayor and Microsoft (MSFT) co-founder said they are hoping to jumpstart a global motion to curb the use of tobacco among adults and teens in developing countries such as China, India, and Indonesia. With the help of partners such considered in the state of the World Health Organization (WHO), they aim to help commonwealth officials and business leaders in low- and middle-income countries create tobacco control programs, raise tobacco taxes, ban advertising, and cause smoke-free public spaces. "This company with Gates’ foundation underscores how a great deal of the tide is truly turning in preparation for this epidemic," Bloomberg said at a July 23 news conference at The New York Times (NYT) headquarters. "This takes it to the next level."

The project is being launched just to the degree that Bloomberg is entering the twilight of his mayoral career. In recent months there has been a eddy of speculation put on Bloomberg’s future for his second term ends in December 2009. The mayor, a former smoker, has taken a zealous stand counter to smoking since entering office. In 2002, he waged a strive to ban smoking in New York City bars and restaurants. (In 1990, San Luis Obispo, Calif., became the first municipality with so a ban.) In recent years, couple dozen states consider followed New York’s lead by banning smoking in restaurants and bars, with a handful of other countries following suit.

With slightly further than a year left in office, Bloomberg, who founded the financial data-service firm Bloomberg, is beginning to set his sights steady larger goals, said Mitchell Moss, a professor of urban policy and planning at New York University and an adviser to the mayor’s primeval campaign. One of these is to be a "greater player" on the global health front, Moss declared. "Mike Bloomberg is going to be probably more important and more of authority completely of office than in corporation," Moss said. "Instead of trying to improve conditions in New York’s five boroughs, he’s going to be looking at the five continents of the world."

Bloomberg has managed to secure a powerful member of a partnership towards his project, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Gates Foundation, one of the largest private foundations in the world, with effects of more than $37 billion, will invest $125 million over five years to fight tobacco use, including a $24 million grant to Bloomberg’s initiative. This is just the start of "many things" the two will work attached together in future years, Gates said. "Michael and I have somewhat similar world views and I’m excited that, at some point, he’ll be putting more time into this because we need more voices on this issue," Gates said.

The investing. by the Gates Foundation will complement the work popularly being done by Bloomberg’s private charity in the war against smoking. Bloomberg started an initiative called "Bloomberg’s Effort to Reduce Tobacco Use" back in 2006, initially funneling $125 million into the project. Over the next four years, Bloomberg will tag an additional $250 million to the campaign—for a mass of $375 million in contributions—through the ultimate goal of reducing smoking in the 15 low- and middle-income countries that harbor the majority of the cosmos’s smokers. The cash force of will be distributed among five groups, including the WHO and the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention.