Despite global commitments to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), persistent barriers have continued to hinder meaningful progress. Amongst these barriers, are transgenerational trauma, gender-based inequality, limited opportunities for youth engagement, and fragmented community responses. The UNESCO Collective Healing Initiative, through its pioneering Intergenerational Dialogue and Inquiry (IDI) approach, uniquely tackles these barriers by harnessing cultural wisdom, fostering communal resilience, and strengthening youth leadership.
To discern the impact of the IDI approach, the Guerrand-Hermès Foundation and Global Humanity for Peace (GHfP) Institute at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David have undertaken a three-year research study in 9 countries, investigating the processes and outcomes of intergenerational approaches in achieving the SDGs. This study engaged youth and elders, who are participants in the UNESCO Collective Healing programmes. In addition, the Institute also sought the perspectives of global youth on their needs for leadership development and changemaking.
Emergent insights from both studies were presented in New York during the 2025 UN ECOSOC Youth Forum as a Side Event. The questions explored include:
- What concrete evidence demonstrates that intergenerational approaches significantly contribute to SDGs?
- How can international, national, and community-level policymakers effectively integrate intergenerational approaches in sustainable development strategies?
- What specific policy commitments can stakeholders (governments, NGOs, researchers, politicians, youth leaders) make today to ensure that intergenerational approaches become integral to achieving the 2030 Agenda?
Led by Prof Scherto Gill and our young co-researcher, Casey Overton, this interactive event brought together voices from UNESCO, academia, policy, and youth to examine evidence from the research projects, and highlighted opportunities for policy integration, such as scalable intergenerational strategies to bolster community resilience and social inclusion towards well-being futures.
Amongst the findings presented are that today’s youth navigate a world shaped by global disturbance, climate crises, and rapid technological change, often experiencing fragmentation and alienation. Intergenerational processes and approaches can enable elders to better understand youth perspectives while supporting youth to reconnect with traditional wisdom, cultural resources, and collective resilience — key to overcoming obstacles to sustainable development.
These studies underscore the transformative potential of intergenerational strategies in fostering long-term positive change, bridge historical divisions, and promote youth-led collective action for the SDGs. It is precisely such insights that can inform policy development, by stressing the critical need for practical implementation of IDI and for ensuring intergenerational accountability.
Casey further reflected on the potential and limitation of intergenerational approach. In particular, she pointed out that whilst dialogue can serve as connective tissue, aimed at building bridges, enabling understanding and collaboration, power disparity can inhibit dialogue. For instance, IDI in some contexts doesn’t always take place amongst equals. Therefore it requires institutional structures and processes to systematically integrate intergenerational approach to social transformation.
The session received enthusiastic responses from the participants who both recognised the significance of these research studies and echoed the importance of IDI in their own national and local contexts, in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas.
