Issue Areas of the Pardee Global Human Progress Initiative

Given the depth and breadth of their experience, and recognizing that they will be the leaders of future change, students at the Pardee RAND Graduate School were invited to participate in a “Call for Ideas” to help shape the initial focus of the Pardee Initiative for Global Human Progress.

The finalists were:

• Food Security in Africa and Asia (Tyler Lippert, Youngbok Ryu, Kun Gu)
• Reimagining Cities: Shaping Cities as an Engine of Innovation, Growth, and Development in Africa and Asia (Zhimin Mao, Edmundo Molina-Perez, Tobi Oluwatola, Abdul Tariq, and Caroline Tassot)
• Improvement of Higher Education Systems in the Developing Countries in Africa and Asia (Cameron Wright, Aziza Arifkhanova, and Jose Castillo)

As a result, the first phase of the Global Human Progress Initiative will address two broad issue areas:

• Food Security and Sustainable Agriculture
• Urbanization and the Urban/Rural Divide, with a sub-focus on education and training as related to issues of urbanization, such as youth employment

The Pardee Initiative also funds dissertation awards for Pardee RAND students focusing in these areas, thereby investing in the future generation of leaders who will be at the forefront of tackling many of these problems in the years to come.