Eastern Partnership Leaders for Change

The Eastern Partnership Leaders for Change project provides “a platform for networking”, is “a great learning experience” and leads to “new initiatives with like-minded colleagues”. This is how participants describe the regional seminars that took place in 2016 and the international forum in Kyiv in 2017 within this new format. The project was launched to contribute to the political modernization of the Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries by training and empowering a new generation of reform-oriented political and civic leaders. It includes representatives from political youth organizations and civil society from the three EaP countries that implement Association Agreements: Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.

The project is organized by the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung and the Ukrainian Institute for International Politics in partnership with the Eduardo Frei Foundation from the Netherlands. In a competitive selection process, about 160 participants were selected for regional seminars all over Ukraine. Following the regional seminars, the most engaged and outstanding participants were invited to the forum that brought them together with their peers from other regions.

The format includes training, skills workshops, working groups and panel discussions as well as resolution drafting for participants. Topics range from the European Association process to civic engagement, from working with media to negotiation skills and consensus-oriented decision-making and many others. Following the seminars, the participants reported that they stayed in contact with at least 3-5 other alumni, some even with up to 10 and more. The format will be continued with a new cohort in 2017 and 2018 respectively.

For more impressions from the Eastern Partnership Leaders for Change, watch the video of the 2016 cohort here. If you are an alumnus, join the community.