Youth, Culture, and the Power of Shared Ground: Reflections from MONDIACULT 2025
At MONDIACULT 2025 in Barcelona, UNESCO placed youth participation at the core of its cultural policy agenda. Through the creation of MondiaYouth—a dedicated platform for young cultural actors—participants called for stronger integration of culture and education, and for the institutionalisation of youth voices in global and national cultural policymaking.
For the first time, a dedicated youth space—MondiaYouth—was organised alongside the ministerial forum. The initiative brought together young people aged 18–25 to exchange ideas on the intersections of culture, education, and sustainability. The event’s outcomes were captured in the “MondiaYouth Perspectives 2025” document, presented during the closing ceremony in the presence of UNESCO’s Director-General Audrey Azoulay and Spain’s Minister of Culture Ernest Urtasun. The declaration urged governments and cultural institutions to recognise youth as “active cultural agents” and ensure their participation in decision-making processes that shape the future of culture and education.
Youth contributions extended beyond dialogue. The Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) Working Group of the SDG4 Youth & Student Network produced two key resources presented during the conference: a youth-led video illustrating how culture influences learning and identity, and a research-based paper examining the cultural dimensions of climate policies in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Japan, and Nepal.
Both outputs reinforced the argument that culture and education are inseparable in achieving sustainable development. They demonstrated that culturally grounded approaches to education and climate policy can make global goals more tangible and locally relevant.
Despite the progress achieved through MondiaYouth, participants also pointed to ongoing barriers limiting meaningful youth participation. These include the lack of culturally responsive education systems, limited promotion of cultural careers in academia, and insufficient inclusion of youth voices in policymaking spaces.
Participants called for reforms to embed cultural literacy within education systems, expand access to cultural training, and institutionalise youth participation across the cultural policy ecosystem.
As preparations begin for MONDIACULT 2029 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the legacy of MondiaYouth offers a roadmap for sustained youth inclusion. The call to “let us voice our opinions in the same rooms in which you speak” remains a guiding principle for networks across the sector.
For ENCATC, which bridges cultural education, research, and policy, these developments represent an important opportunity to continue strengthening youth leadership in cultural management and to promote intercultural dialogue as a cornerstone of sustainable development.