In next 15 years, Gates Foundation sees biggest jump for poor in history

Bill and Melinda Gates are interviewed in New York, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2015. As the world decides on the most crucial goals for the next 15 years in defeating poverty, disease and hunger, the $42 billion Gates Foundation announces its own ambitious agenda. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig) (The Associated Press)

Melinda Gates listens while her husband Bill Gates talks during an interview in New York, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2015. As the world decides on the most crucial goals for the next 15 years in defeating poverty, disease and hunger, the $42 billion Gates Foundation announces its own ambitious agenda. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig) (The Associated Press)

Bill Gates listens while his wife Melinda Gates talks during an interview in New York, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2015. As the world decides on the most crucial goals for the next 15 years in defeating poverty, disease and hunger, the $42 billion Gates Foundation announces its own ambitious agenda. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig) (The Associated Press)

The $42 billion Gates Foundation is predicting that the lives of poor people around the world will improve more over the next 15 years than at any time in history.

Bill and Melinda Gates in an interview Wednesday laid out the vision for the world's largest charitable foundation as they prepared to leave for the World Economic Forum and its networking meeting of heads of state and business leaders.

The international community this year is deciding on the most crucial goals for the next 15 years in defeating poverty, disease and hunger.

The Gates Foundation's own ambitious 15-year agenda, spelled out in its new annual letter, foresees the elimination of polio and three other diseases and says Africa will be able to feed itself.

But climate change is hardly addressed.