Highlighting the work of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in his 2010 Annual Letter on Monday, Co-Chairman Bill Gates urged the wealthier, technologically-advanced countries to increase their foreign-aid budgets so as to “improve the human condition” for everyone in the world.

Saying that the people living in abject poverty have been the hardest hit by the global economic downturn, Gates added that a combination of “scientific innovations and great leaders” can contribute a lot towards the improvement of the lives of the poor; whilst the ‘full’ economic recovery and “undoing the damage” will expectedly take a few years.

Gates wrote in his letter: “Although the acute financial crisis is over, the economy is still weak, and the world will spend a lot of years undoing the damage, which includes lingering unemployment and huge government deficits and debts at record levels.”

The letter also makes a mention of the world’s “most generous” countries – passing on between 0.72 percent and 1 percent of their GDP to foreign aid – namely, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and Luxembourg.

Gates 17-page annual letter, essentially presents a review of the work done in 2009 by his $34-billion foundation in 2009. It draws attention to the foundation’s contributions towards education and agriculture in the developing countries, as well as the its key focus area – development of vaccines.