U.S. Department of State: Grant for the Young Pacific Leaders Annual Conference

The U.S. Embassy New Zealand Public Diplomacy Section (PDS) of the U.S. Department of State announces an open competition for organizations to submit applications to carry out a program to develop and implement a Young Pacific Leaders (YPL) Conference sometime between May-July 2024 to provide emerging Pacific leaders with the skills and knowledge they need to become leaders, pending the availability of funding. The Conference should preferably take part in Hawaii, USA to coincide with the 2024 Festival of Pacific Arts, but may be hosted in other Pacific locations pending logistics and costs.

The State Department has convened a diverse Young Pacific Leaders (YPL) Conference each year since 2013, taking place in American Samoa, Samoa, New Zealand, Hawaii, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, and Guam. Each conference shared the goal of building leadership capacity and creating ties among emerging leaders from across the Pacific region (see below for a list of participating countries). This year, the conference should bring together a group of emerging leaders, ages 25-40, with the goal of providing them with practical leadership skills and a deeper knowledge of regional issues related to the four pillars of the YPL program: civic engagement, environment/resource management, education, and economic and social development. The conference should also help participants grow their networks and enable them to work with their peers on issues that affect the region. 

The conference should emphasize experiential learning and capacity building in order to equip diverse participants with the tools they need for success. We encourage pre- and post-conference programming that will reinforce the learnings from the conference.