Melinda, Bill and Bono Are Time's People of the Year

The Irish rock star Bono and the world's richest couple, Bill and Melinda Gates, were yesterday named winners of the seasonal ritual known as Time magazine's person or persons of the year award.

Time gave its accolade to the threesome "for being shrewd about doing good, for rewiring politics and re-engineering justice, for making mercy smarter and hope strategic and then daring the rest of us to follow". They had made a real difference in the fight against malaria, Aids and global poverty, it said.

The rules of the award dictate that the choice should be made on the basis of "the person or persons who most affected the news and our lives, for good or for ill, and embodied what was important about the year, for better or for worse." Past winners have included George Bush, the Queen, Hitler and Stalin. Others on this year's shortlist included Oprah Winfrey and Valerie Plame, the outed CIA agent at the heart of the leak scandal that has rocked the Bush administration.

Mr Gates, founder of the computer giant Microsoft, who topped Forbes magazine's list of the world's richest people again this year with a $46.5bn (£26.2bn) personal fortune, was named with his wife for their work with the Gates Foundation. The charity is the world's biggest, with a $29bn endowment. It funds hundreds of projects globally, primarily focused on public health, from vaccinating children to developing new drugs.

Bono, along with fellow Irish musician Bob Geldof, is credited with helping to pressure the world's richest states to cancel debt and double aid to the poorest countries. His legendary schmoozing ability is illustrated by an anecdote when he dropped by George Bush's suite at the G8 in Gleneagles for a final nudge before the end of the summit. "On so many issues it's difficult to know what God wants from us", Bono told the president, "but on this issue - helping the desperately poor - we know God will bless it."

According to the magazine, Mr and Mrs Gates and Bono forged an unlikely alliance after a dinner at their home in 2002. "We'd certainly never had a rock star to the house before," Mrs Gates told Time, "but the whole reason we got together is because we have this joint cause."

Mr Gates said he did not have high hopes for the meeting. "World health is immensely complicated. It doesn't boil down to a 'let's be nice' analysis. So I thought a meeting wouldn't be that valuable." But it did not take him long to change his mind. "It's not about making himself [Bono] look good. He really reads this stuff; he cares about the complexity."

The lead singer of U2 was equally effusive about collaborating on global health with the world's richest couple. "When an Irish rock star starts talking about it, people go, 'yeah, you're paid to be indulged and have these ideas'. But when Bill Gates says you can fix malaria in 10 years, they know he's done a few spreadsheets."

Time quotes Tony Blair describing how, during a visit to Number 10, Bono learned that the G8's civil-servant "sherpas" who put deals into precise language were feuding over how to pay for the proposed $50bn aid package. After introducing himself, Bono asked them to "please go that bit further", reminding them that "in 20 years, this week is one of the things you'll be most proud of in your lives".