For its 9th edition, UNESCO is working to make its Youth Forum even more inclusive, diverse and representative of youth around the world. UNESCO wishes to involve motivated and dynamic young women and men who would like to have their voices heard on the Forum’s themes selected by themselves.

The Forum’s participants should be between 18 and 24 years old and should not have participated in previous editions. They should be able to contribute to the Forum in either English or French and should be involved in youth-related issues at country or community level, with

  • some knowledge of or experience in the post-2015 process and/or issues related to the Sustainable Development Goals.
  • some knowledge of or experience in climate change.

Participation process

In order to ensure that the Forum is representative and diverse, three parallel participation channels are available:

1.    Each UNESCO Member State will identify at least one young woman or man, through its National Commission for UNESCO. This person should be selected through a participatory and transparent process, according to specific criteria set by the UNESCO Secretariat. National Commissions should also facilitate consultations between the designated youth participant and representative youth associations in their countries. Associated costs will be borne by the Member States.

For more information, we invite you to contact the National Commission for UNESCO of your country to obtain the specific selection criteria, details of the nomination process in your country and required documents.

2.    In parallel, youth-related partners and civil society entities, national and local authorities, UN agencies, major IGOs, UNESCO Chairs, clubs, category 1 and 2 Institutes and Centres, and also the private sector and media partners working in the field of youth, will be invited to nominate young women and men from their youth networks, along set criteria provided by the UNESCO Secretariat, as well as their institutional representative. Associated costs will be borne by the nominating entities.

If you are member of a youth organization maintaining official relations with UNESCO and you are interested to participate, please contact this organization directly.

If you are a local, national, regional or international youth-related NGO or entity, we invite you to communicate to us your interest to nominate representative(s) and/or youth participant(s) and send a description of your organization to9thUNESCOYouthForum(at)unesco.org, mentioning in the subject “Participation in the 9th UYF”.

3.    Finally, an online open call will be launched to allow individual young women and men to apply to participate in the Forum. From these applicants, the UNESCO Secretariat will select a limited number of youth participants based on specific criteria. All young women and men applying through this channel will need to cover their own participation expenses.

If you are a young person fitting the general criteria above and would like to apply, watch this page for the application form and specific criteria.

Volunteers

In addition, as for each Forum, UNESCO will call for motivated young women and men to contribute as volunteers to the work of the Secretariat, before and during the Youth Forum.

Should you be a young woman or man, aged between 18 and 24, interested in volunteering, available to come to Paris several days before and during the Forum, and able to bear the expenses of your stay in Paris on this occasion, please send us your CV at 9thUNESCOYouthForum(at)unesco.org indicating in the subject “Proposed volunteer for the 9th UYF”.

UNESCO Online Youth Community

Being part of the Forum is not only about participating during the three days of the event, but also about contributing to its design and preparations. To do so, join the UNESCO Online Youth Community, and share with us your ideas and opinions to shape together this key youth event.

For more information on how to participate click here.

For more information on the 9th UNESCO Youth Forum click here.