The WHO Youth Council has convened its 2026–2028 membership for the first time, bringing together focal points from 25 youth-led and youth-serving organizations in Berlin on 9–10 October 2026, ahead of the World Health Summit.
The new term welcomes 11 organizations joining the Council for the first time and 14 returning member organizations. Together, they represent young people working across medicine, nursing, pharmacy, public health, mental health, HIV, nutrition, climate, health diplomacy, foreign policy and more.
The meeting opened with welcome remarks from Dr Gaudenz Silberschmidt, Director, Partnerships and Financing at WHO, the Council’s leadership, F/A/Q Health and the Bertelsmann Stiftung. A roundtable on elevating youth leadership in global health governance linked the three areas of the Council’s Youth Declaration on Creating Healthy Societies to the redesign of the global health architecture, followed by an overview of the Council’s role in the Global Health Architecture consultation process.
Members reviewed the achievements, challenges and lessons of the 2024–2026 term and were introduced to the Council’s terms of reference, ways of working, Steering Committee, working groups and key projects. A fireside chat explored WHO’s mandate on youth leadership, governance and inclusion across the Organization.
On the second day, the Council’s three working groups – Promoting Health Education and Literacy, Accessibility and Equity, and Planetary Health – each defined up to three goals for the term. Members also shaped the Council’s operations, including work with WHO departments and regional chapters, communications, external partnerships and funding, and led a peer session on leadership and sustainability. The co-chair of the Eastern Mediterranean Regional Youth Council joined the meeting.
The meeting was preceded on 8 October by the first meeting of the 2026–2028 Steering Committee, which agreed its ways of working, up to five priority actions to strengthen its governance and support to the Council, and three overarching goals for the term.
“Through our third term, we are looking forward to building on the momentum and progress made over the last four years; our resolve as a Council, networks and global citizens has only strengthened as we continue to build strong relationships across our organizations as well as across the multilateral system to truly institutionalize meaningful youth participation in global health and the global health workforce, a strong commitment to recognizing the expertise that young people bring, which is more important today than ever before” said Rehman Hassan, WHO Youth Council Co-Chair.
Following the meeting, Council members will take part in the World Health Summit in Berlin from 11–13 October 2026.
The WHO Youth Council was established by the WHO Director-General to amplify the voices and expertise of young people in global health. Its members are youth-led and youth-serving health and non-health organizations from all six WHO regions. They advise the Director-General and WHO senior leadership, and the Council serves as a platform for incubating new initiatives and expanding existing WHO youth engagement programmes, including Global Model WHO and the WHO Youth Delegate Programme .
Regional Youth Councils are operational in the Eastern Mediterranean and South-East Asia Regions, with further regions in development.
