The Global Poverty Project has announced a $1.5 million contribution from the Sumner M. Redstone Charitable Foundation to further its efforts to eradicate poverty.

The gift from Redstone — who heads National Amusements, which controls the CBS Corporation and Viacom — will support the project's End of Polio campaign, an effort to build global support for polio eradication. The gift also will augment the project's endowment fund, furthering the organization's long-term goal of eradicating extreme poverty through campaigns for global health, fair trade, and good governance.

According to GPP, cases of polio have been reduced by 99 percent over the past twenty years and more than two billion children have been immunized against the disease. Working with Rotary International, UNICEF, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization, and other partners in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, GPP hopes to raise public awareness of polio eradication efforts and gain the commitment and backing of world leaders.

"The eradication of preventable diseases like polio is essential in the fight against extreme poverty. Diseases like polio pull vulnerable people deeper into the cycle of poverty, threatening their access to basics like food, water, education, and their ability to earn a living," said Global Poverty Project CEO Hugh Evans. "Polio is endemic in just four countries. Eradication is within our reach."