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JAKARTA, March 23 (Xinhua) -- Melinda Gates, co-founder of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) on Thursday appreciated the Indonesian government's initiatives in providing non-cash social assistance to alleviate poverty.
The message was conveyed during her meeting with Indonesian President Joko Widodo at the airport, shortly before the president departed for a visit to Riau province.
"We really appreciate those programs. We have learned many things during our visit to Indonesia. We would adopt the programs and apply them in other countries (served by BMGF)," head of media and information section at the presidential palace Bey Machmudin quoted a statement of Microsoft founder Bill Gates' wife as saying.
Melinda visited Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta to observe the BMGF-funded cooperation between the university and John Hopkins University in addressing dengue fever.
During the meeting with Melinda, President Widodo explained the nation's non-cash assistance programs to address social issues, including health, education and poverty alleviation.
"We already applied the Smart Indonesia Card, Healthy Indonesia Card and Family of Hope programs. Those programs are intended to improve people's welfare and human resources quality," the president said.
With certain conditions and requirements, people entitled to use the cards can access financial service in banks designated to serve the social programs.
BMGF, founded in 2000, is regarded as the world's largest private foundation. BMGF is designed to address healthcare problem among the society, alleviate extreme poverty and expand educational opportunities and access to information technology.
The foundation gathered endowment of 44.3 billion U.S. dollars in 2014. Bill and Melinda Gates were ranked as the second most generous philanthropists in the United States in 2007 after Warren Buffett.
