🌍 Global Leadership Programme for Changemakers 🕊️ Drive Intercultural Dialogue with UNESCO's Youth for Peace 🤝 (Includes $10,000 grant)

If you are an emerging leader ready to turn dialogue into real change, this UNESCO flagship programme offers a powerful platform. Youth for Peace equips a new generation of intercultural leaders with training, mentorship, a global network, and a $10,000 grant to implement their own community initiative, all centred on one of the most urgent questions of our time: human connection in the age of artificial intelligence.

About the Programme

The Youth for Peace: UNESCO Intercultural Leadership Programme is UNESCO's flagship initiative for emerging leaders who are driving social cohesion, inclusion, and peace through intercultural dialogue. As societies become increasingly interconnected yet fragmented by polarisation, inequality, and rapid technological change, there is a growing need for leaders who can bridge divides, foster trust, and mobilise collective action across differences.

The programme is founded on the conviction that intercultural dialogue is not simply a communication tool, but a transformative form of leadership that equips people and communities to navigate complexity, build trust across differences, and develop shared solutions to common challenges. Through leadership development, mentorship, community action, and global engagement, it builds a new generation of intercultural leaders who translate dialogue into meaningful change. The programme forms part of UNESCO's Road to Peace: Dialogue and Action for Tolerance and Intercultural Understanding initiative.

2026 Theme: Human Connection and Dialogue in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence is transforming how people communicate, learn, work, and engage across cultures, creating new opportunities for participation, education, and connection while raising urgent questions about trust, inclusion, representation, and equality.

Participants will explore how AI is reshaping intercultural relationships and social cohesion, engaging with challenges including:

⚠️ Misinformation, hate speech, and online polarisation

🤖 Algorithmic bias, stereotyping, and digital discrimination

📡 Unequal access to technology, infrastructure, education, and digital skills

🌐 The representation of diverse cultures, languages, and knowledge systems within AI

At the same time, participants will examine how AI can advance intercultural understanding through multilingual communication, accessibility, civic participation, cultural preservation, conflict prevention, and new forms of cross-border collaboration, developing dialogue-based responses that place human connection at the centre of technological change.

What the Programme Offers

🎓 Capacity-building: online training workshops to develop intercultural leadership skills and prepare for project implementation

🧭 Ongoing learning and mentorship: continuous support, knowledge-sharing, and personalised coaching as you implement your project

💵 A seed grant of $10,000 upon approval, to implement your project over six months

🕊️ Participation in a wide range of events, such as the UNESCO Global Youth Dialogue for Peace

📚 Access to UNESCO resources, toolkits, and opportunities to contribute to global policy advocacy

The Leadership Journey

The programme combines leadership development, practical action, and global engagement across three interconnected phases.

Phase 1: Strengthen Your Leadership Practice

An immersive learning journey of interactive online workshops, building the competencies intercultural leaders need to drive change in complex and rapidly evolving environments. Topics may include:

🤝 Intercultural leadership in practice: leading across differences, building trust, and mobilising collective action through dialogue

📣 Strategic communication and influence: framing narratives for impact and engaging stakeholders across cultural and linguistic boundaries

⚖️ Intercultural mediation and conflict transformation: facilitating dialogue in contested spaces and supporting reconciliation

🔮 Foresight, anticipation, and adaptive leadership: reading complex social and technological trends and designing resilient responses

💻 Technology as a tool for dialogue: exploring how digital platforms and AI can expand the reach of intercultural dialogue

🧠 AI as a resource for intercultural leaders: using AI tools ethically and critically while centring inclusion and intercultural sensitivity

📊 Designing dialogue-based initiatives for impact: developing a theory of change, engaging communities, and building initiatives with measurable outcomes

Phase 2: Lead an Intercultural Action Initiative

Participants apply their learning by designing and leading an intercultural dialogue initiative that addresses the annual theme. Upon approval of their action plan, they receive seed funding of USD 10,000 to translate their leadership vision into practical community action.

Initiatives must:

🎯 Align with the theme, Human Connection and Dialogue in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

💬 Use intercultural dialogue as a core methodology

🌍 Be implemented within six months at local or national level

Throughout implementation, participants continue to receive mentorship, learning opportunities, and peer support.

Phase 3: Amplify Impact and Influence Global Conversations

Beyond community-level action, participants contribute to broader global discussions on peace, inclusion, and intercultural leadership through:

🎤 The UNESCO Global Youth Dialogue for Peace, where they present outcomes, exchange practices, and engage directly with policymakers and institutional leaders

🌐 Membership in the Youth for Peace Global Alumni Network, with ongoing opportunities for collaboration, advocacy, and leadership development

📖 Access to UNESCO tools and resources, with opportunities to contribute insights to the UNESCO Global Intercultural Action Observatory, informing future policy and advocacy

Who Should Apply

UNESCO is seeking emerging leaders who demonstrate a strong commitment to dialogue, inclusion, and positive social change. Applicants must:

🎂 Be between 25 and 45 years old as of 22 October 2026

🌟 Have a demonstrated record of leadership in their field

❤️ Show commitment to intercultural dialogue and social impact

🔄 Demonstrate openness to self-reflection, dialogue across differences, and collaborative learning

🚀 Have the potential to influence and create positive change in their communities

📅 Be available to participate fully in all programme components, as inability to participate fully will result in non-selection

Selection Process

📝 Step 1: submit your online application with all required documentation by the deadline. The use of AI tools to support preparation (such as structuring ideas or refining language) is permitted, but applicants must take ownership of all content and ensure it authentically reflects their own perspectives; applications lacking sufficient personal engagement may be deemed ineligible.

✅ Step 2: eligibility screening against programme requirements

🔍 Step 3: technical assessment by an international jury against the programme criteria

🎉 Step 4: final selection, with the cohort of 50 Young Leaders notified by mid-October 2026