UNESCO Launches New Programme to Address Racism in and through Education in Europe..
While racist ideologies and discrimination continue to be a global problem and are still widespread in our societies, racism and discrimination are not inevitable: education plays a key role in its prevention by fostering equality, inclusion and respect for diversity, and by empowering the young generations to become agents of change and act as responsible global citizens.
20 March 2026
To face this urgent challenge, UNESCO has launched a two-year project in 2026 aimed at addressing racism in and through education in Europe, in partnership with the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE/ODIHR). The project is funded by the European Commission.
Throughout history, racism and intolerance have been major drivers of war and destruction. Racism is, above all, a profound attack on universal values of human rights and a deliberate attempt to destroy our sense of a shared humanity.
UNESCO’s approach
As highlighted in the UNESCO 2023 Recommendation on Education for Peace, Human Rights and Sustainable Development, peace cannot be reduced to the absence of physical conflict alone. Peace begins with a reinvigorated social contract that embeds diversity, mutual understanding and solidarity across societies.
In this context and in synergy with the Anti-Racism Strategy 2026 of the European Commission, UNESCO will support, through this project, education systems in preventing racism and fostering inclusive and equitable learning environments.
This will be done through these principles and actions:
- Listen to those most impacted by racism to pave the way forward
Through a global consultation process, UNESCO will bring together key stakeholders in the field of anti-racism education and include representatives from vulnerable groups and victims of racism. The aim is to create a dynamic space for dialogue and exchange where civil society organizations, academic networks, equality bodies, governmental agencies and ministries of education can come together to map out the challenges, the needs and the solutions to prevent and eradicate racism.
- Address racism by approaching each form of hatred on its own terms
UNESCO will address each form of racism on its own terms, as racism is not abstract, and affects real persons and communities in distinctive ways. To understand and address distinct manifestations of racism, UNESCO will look at the specific histories and causes behind each type of hatred, including against people of African descent, Muslims, Roma or Jews.
Preventing racism works best through two steps: first, by challenging and deconstructing the nature of the "othering" that is used to justify inequality; and second, by developing targeted interventions anchored in the particular historical contexts, lived experiences, and structural dynamics that shape each form of racism. In that way responses follow universal human rights and equality principles but also fit and respond to each situation.
- Update educational responses to new and evolving forms of racism
Racism mutates, like a virus, and exploits new technology to spread faster than before. Educational systems are often ill-equipped to deal with these new challenges. UNESCO will set out to equip educators with the tools that are necessary to build learners’ resilience to polarizing racist narratives on social media, amplified by powerful algorithms, deepfakes and misinformation, by building on its tested Media and Information Literacy (MIL), digital competencies frameworks and previous work on the ethics of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
- Teach about contemporary racism by integrating education about the historical legacies of racism
UNESCO has been pioneering innovative and human rights-centered approaches to teaching about violent pasts as crucial investments into sustainable peace. Through programmes such as : Routes of Enslaved Peoples, the General History of Africa and Holocaust Education, UNESCO promotes a historically grounded education approach that encourages learners to critically examine the roots of racism and to recognize how historical injustices continue to influence contemporary societies.
The efforts to deconstruct the pervasive myths and stereotypes that underpin racial discrimination have been embedded since its inception into UNESCO’s core mandate. In the 1950s, UNESCO launched a global programme against racism, led by world-renowned intellectuals such as Claude Levi-Strauss, resulting in a series of landmark statements on racism that reiterated the organization’s fundamental values: we all share a common humanity, and preserving it requires a constant vigilance and commitment to address racism at all levels of society.