Rotary’s most ambitious undertaking, announced in 1985, is the PolioPlus program -- a massive campaign to eradicate polio by the year 2005. Conducted with the cooperation of national governments and intergovernmental agencies such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), PolioPlus is a paradigm for public/private sector collaboration in the fight against disease. PolioPlus helps support national and regional polio eradication programs by providing vaccine, surveillance support and social mobilization. By the year 2005 -- the target date for certification of a polio-free world -- Rotarian contributions to the global polio eradication effort will reach a half billion US dollars.

First admitted in 1987, women are today the fastest-growing segment of Rotary membership, and increasingly hold leadership positions within the organization. More than 2,000 women serve as club presidents and women are also rapidly assuming regional leadership roles. Currently, some 1.2 million professional men and women belong to more than 30,000clubs worldwide.

Rotary continues to grow internationally. After the collapse of the Iron Curtain, Rotary clubs which had been disbanded during World War II were re-established in central and eastern Europe. In 1990, Rotary clubs were formed in Russia for the first time, and other former Soviet republics soon followed. Kyrgyzstan, once a part of the Soviet Union, is a recent addition.

Today, Rotary International encourages its clubs to focus on a broad spectrum of service activities such as hunger, the environment, violence prevention, illiteracy, drug abuse prevention, polio eradication, youth, the elderly, and AIDS awareness and education. Rotary clubs around the world are united under the motto “Service Above Self.”