The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation announced a $5.44 million grant to the UCLA WORLD Policy Analysis Center to create a program to train the next generation of world leaders and thinkers.
Based at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, WORLD is a quantitative policy center that captures data “on what actions governments take to advance social, economic and environmental well-being for all 193 U.N. member countries.”
Foundation and WORLD officials said there are few existing programs that focus on training the next generation of leaders to address the human development, health, economic and environmental needs at the core of the Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs, unanimously adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015.
The 17 universal goals include reducing poverty and hunger, improving health, advancing education, making cities more sustainable, and combating climate change. Beyond governments, a wide range of civil society and private sector stakeholders have committed themselves to the implementation of the SDGs by 2030.
“We believe that, in order to achieve the SDGs, we must invest in training a new generation across all fields related to the goals to give these future leaders and practitioners the cross-discipline knowledge and skills needed for necessary implementation,” said Peter Laugharn, president and CEO of the Hilton Foundation Monday.
“We are confident in the breadth of experience that Dean Jody Heymann and the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health bring to this program, and we are proud to be supporting this initiative,” he said. Heymann said the grant from the Hilton Foundation will be used “to equip the next generation of leaders with the tools to learn what works to accelerate poverty reduction, advance equal opportunity and achieve the SDGs.”
“Training will focus both on fellows obtaining the skills to advance knowledge and on having the skills to effectively translate that understanding into equal opportunity for previously marginalized populations, more equitable health and education outcomes, increased livelihoods and an improved environment,” Heymann said.
The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, which was created by the founder of Hilton Hotels in 1944, currently focuses on six priority areas: providing safe water, ending chronic homelessness, preventing substance use, helping children affected by HIV and AIDS, supporting transition-age youth in foster care, and extending Conrad Hilton’s support for the work of Catholic Sisters.
The foundation also annually awards the $2 million Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize to a nonprofit organization doing extraordinary work to reduce human suffering.
–City News Service