The Nelson Mandela Project for Social Change aims to strengthen social capital for consensus building and facilitate dialogue to promote participatory forms of governance at national and international levels. Anchored in the UN Secretary General’s Our Common Agenda, the project focuses on ways to build shared values and trust-based relationships between people and institutions through the collection, dissemination and application of knowledge. The Project’s philosophy is anchored in Nelson Mandela’s fundamental leadership insights: promoting a culture of value-based and adaptive leadership, resilience, and empathy, and reflecting a determination to create space to foster social change.

The project brings UNSSC together with seven universities: American University of Beirut, Lebanon; Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership at the City College of New York; IE University, Spain; Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology, University, India, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore; Singapore; the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance, University of Cape Town, South Africa; and Universidad Austral, Argentina. Each university serves to connect to other universities within its region.

On 29 and 30 April 2024, the founding partners of the Nelson Mandela Project for Social Change, as well as special guests and observers, came together on UNSSC’s campus in Turin, Italy for the first meeting to co-create the project and develop essential ownership of its results.