Following are excerpts from the unofficial transcript of a CNBC EXCLUSIVE interview with the Gates Foundation Founder Bill Gates and CNBC's Hadley Gamble. Following are links to the video on CNBC.com: http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000509584, http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000509564, http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000509570 and http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000509580.
All references must be sourced to CNBC.
GATES ON TERROR FINANCING
Hadley Gamble: You've just signed an agreement with the Qatar development fund. Tell us how you plan to help millions of Muslims worldwide.
Bill Gates: The idea is that if we can raise 500 million we can pay off the interest and have very, very generous loans and if we raise the full 500 million than we will have a fund of with 2.5 billion and our foundation committed 100 million the bank itself has a grant facility that committed a 100 million so with the Qatar announcement today, the Qatar development fund, we are halfway to our goal of raising the 500 million so with that we can go ahead start doing grants and this year will include agriculture and health infrastructure and so the bank has a lot of country expertise we have a lot of domain expertise so we will work together and learn from each other.
Hadley Gamble: Why was it so important to help the Muslim community now is it because of the migrant crisis? Is it fears they might be radicalized? What made it so important to tackle this NOW?
Bill Gates: Well if you look at where the poorest of the world are, about 40 percent are in the countries covered by the islamic dev bank (…) The goal is that if you do dev assistance properly than you have more stability, less of these situations where you have to come in simply on a humanitarian basis to make sure food and healthcare gets managed.
Hadley Gamble: So you are working with the Qataries and you're working with the Saudis - these are two countries where a lot of private money has gone to the support of radicals fighting in SYRIA and Iraq and even with the Islamic State - do you see what they're doing in terms of state action, working with your foundation, do you see that as a kind of atonement?
Bill Gates: Well no, I'm not an expert on the funding sources for the bad things going on in the world I'm sure the countries will do everything they can to make sure to make sure the money isn't going to those things.
GATES ON ZIKA
Hadley Gamble: Do you think that the U.S. have the tools they need to tackle the Zika virus?
Bill Gates: The U.S. in all medical funding spends over half of everything that is spent in world and a lot of the expertise about making vaccines and researching disease, the US expertise is very, very important and so the US is reaching out to try and help the effected countries. Of course there is a lot of discussion about that it's expected to some degree massive uncertainty how much that because we actually have the Aedes aegypti mosquito which is the carrier here along with dengue, yellow fever and chikungunya as well, that we could have cases. So the idea is about how can we use new tools to go after the mosquitoes, that's one way to conquer these diseases to go after the vector, reduce or eliminate the mosquito populations. Our foundation has some tools which we will probably want to try because there won't be a vaccine even in the best case for several years here. So there is a lot being looked at but no there is not a total solution to Zika in the world. The US is playing a disproportionate role in moving to find solutions though.
Hadley Gamble: So they should be moving faster?
Bill Gates: Well, you can't really criticize the US because they bare such, you know in terms of the center for disease control, the top experts in these things, the researchers, in a way the world should be thankful to the US that it is so serious about medical research and these things.
GATES ON PANAMA PAPERS
Hadley Gamble: King Salman of Saudi Arabia, the former emir of Qatar as well, both of them were mentioned in the Panama papers. Were you surprised at all by those revelations?
Bill Gates: No, I don't have any expertise in what happened there. I was surprised there were so few Americans
Hadley Gamble: Doesn't the tax system then prohibit it really or make it not worth it?
Bill Gates: Well, the US citizens, whenever you file your tax return you're asked to declare what overseas bank accounts and assets you have. It doesn't mean that everybody absolutely answers that question correctly so it's not impossible that that might have come up
GATES ON SAUDI ARABIA
Hadley Gamble: You've just come out of Saudi Arabia, you've been doing some work with the foundation there, talk to me about your sense of where the relationship with the U.S. is today? Because President Obama of course is travelling to the region shortly, supposedly to work on that relationship.
Bill Gates: There are so many challenges now whether it is related to Syria or Libya or the Gulf states working as one. Are they in alignment with each other about these various issues. Are the Gulf states aligned with Europe and the US on these issues, and these are very tough issues. I mean it's not like somebody just has the solution to ISIS and they're holding back on it and they know how to build stable governance in Libya and they're holding back on it. So the relationship is probably more critical today than it's ever been.
Hadley Gamble: Given what you saw over the last several days on your visit to Saudi, and what's happening with the oil market - would you say that Saudi Arabia despite their grand vision to diversify away from oil revenues, do you think they are moving fast enough?
Bill Gates: Well I think it's very hard to move away from oil and understanding what the oil price will be over a 5 or 10 year timeframe. There is massive uncertainty about that. It could go back up to very high levels and people look back and say ok what a smart thing it was to do, or it could stay at quite reduced levels. So I don't have a particular prediction on that but moving economies when they have had that type of oil dependency away is very difficult to do.
Hadley Gamble: So a long road ahead perhaps?
Bill Gates: Yeah. When you reform your education system, then the students will go through that and it's at least 15 years before your start to have the benefit of that. You know oil is still going to be an important part of these economies for the foreseeable future. There are investments in education but whether it's Egypt or Saudi Arabia, those education systems are not nearly at the level that they need to move away.
GATES ON ISIS
Bill Gates: There are so many challenges now whether it is related to Syria or Libya or the Gulf states working as one. Are they in alignment with each other about these various issues. Are the Gulf states aligned with Europe and the US on these issues, and these are very tough issues. I mean it's not like somebody just has the solution to ISIS and they're holding back on it and they know how to build stable governance in Libya and they're holding back on it. So the relationship is probably more critical today than it's ever been.
GATES ON AVOIDING CORRUPTION
Bill Gates: I think Saudi Arabia is always trying to make sure that their aid is constructive and a little bit we've got to make sure we aren't completely cutting off aid. That the opportunity to lift people up while we are absolutely no one wants to fund any terrorist activity that we are able to achieve both goals avoiding those negatives while continuing that generosity - and I'm sure a lot of efforts have been put to that. The areas where we work in, like buying vaccines which is a global alliance for vaccines that a number of countries including Qatar and Saudi Arabia have supported, you know that is very clear because you can track exactly what's going on. So we're quite careful and we are always offering opportunities where we have enough visibility that people can feel confident that those avoiding corruption and redirection of funds is not a risk.
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