The drive to eradicate polio will have the full operational power of the World Health Organization behind it, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan announced at the RI Convention in Los Angeles in June. Rotarians cheered as Chan continued: “I am making polio eradication the organization’s top operational priority on a most urgent, if not an emergency, basis.”

Chan was joined at the convention by leaders of the other spearheading partners of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative: Julie Gerberding, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Ann M. Veneman, executive director of UNICEF; and Robert S. Scott, chair of Rotary’s International PolioPlus Committee and 2007-08 trustee chair of The Rotary Foundation. It was the first time leaders of all four partners have appeared together and given a joint address.

The $100 million challenge

Scott officially launched Rotary’s US$100 Million Challenge, a three-year fundraising effort to match a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He emphasized that polio eradication will remain Rotary’s top goal until the job is finished.

Calling the Gates Foundation grant a “tremendous honor,” he asked each Rotary club to commit to an annual donation of $1,000 for the next three years. “I heard of one club yesterday that’s going to give $10,000 a year,” he said. “That’s what we need!” 

Gerberding asked those who can to contribute $1,313 to the eradication initiative – one dollar for every child infected with polio in 2007. “If you can’t contribute money,” she continued, “then contribute 1,313 minutes of your time to volunteer in the effort to eradicate polio. If you don’t have time, give 1,313 words to motivate others and help inspire the commitment we need to get this job done.”

All three of the global health leaders stressed Rotarians’ unique part in the eradication initiative. Veneman praised Rotary for playing a crucial role in the immunizations of two billion children since 1988. “UNICEF is proud to be your partner,” she said.

Rotarians urged to continue the fight

Stressing that polio is in retreat, Chan assured Rotarians of her personal commitment to eradication and urged them to continue the fight. “I ask those of you representing Rotary in Afghanistan, India, Nigeria, and Pakistan to do even more,” she said. “You have been the engines of polio eradication in your countries, and I thank you. But I need you to do more. I challenge you to raise the political stakes even higher, as I am doing with heads of state and political leaders. Political leaders must be mobilized and held fully accountable.”

Chan thanked Rotarians for their “steadfast commitment to ridding the world of an ancient disease that has destroyed so many childhoods and broken so many hearts. Together,” she said, “we will bring this to an end, forever.”