Within the ongoing UNESCO80 reform process and reflections on the Organization’s future strategic direction, Member States welcomed and expressed their support for the Call by Young People for a New Culture of Peace in the Minds of Women and Men for the 21st Century, recognizing the importance of young people’s voices and leadership in building peace.
The Executive Board requested to take the call’s recommendations into account in the strategic reflection and implementation of the UNESCO80 Roadmap. It also encouraged Member States to disseminate the Call widely, particularly among young people, by mobilizing their National Commissions for UNESCO and relevant networks.
Developed through a youth-led consultation between July and September 2026, the Call brings together the perspectives of 145 young leaders from 135 countries. It highlights the importance of meaningful youth participation in decision-making and renewed action across education, the sciences, culture, climate, and digital technologies. The Call was first presented and discussed at high-level events in Paris on 3 and 4 September 2026, in the presence of UNESCO Director-General, Khaled El-Enany, and France’s Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, Jean-Noël Barrot.
During the Executive Board, discussions by Member States and the Director-General further reaffirmed the importance of engaging young people in UNESCO’s future work across all its fields of competence. As leaders, researchers, innovators, and policy actors, young people contribute to advancing the Organization’s mandate and shaping its programmes and actions.
It is only through meaningful partnership with young people that UNESCO can address social transformations and inequalities, safeguard heritage and the planet, foster creativity, respond to crises, and build resilient societies in the age of AI.
UNESCO’s Executive Board also decided to convene an extraordinary session of the General Conference on January 2027 to consider whether to proceed with the preparation of an international standard-setting instrument on young people and digital environments in the age of artificial intelligence, for further consideration at an extraordinary session of the General Conference on 29 January 2027. At a time when young people are increasingly engaged in rapidly evolving digital environments, such an instrument would respond to an urgent need to protect their rights and amplify their agency.
Together, these developments reaffirm UNESCO’s commitment to working with young people not only as beneficiaries of its programmes, but as active partners and agents of change in building a more peaceful, inclusive, and sustainable future.
