International Visitor Leadership Program

The International Visitor Leadership Program ( IVLP ) is a cultural exchange program of the U.S. Department of State. The aim is to promote mutual understanding between citizens of the United States and other countries.

The program goes back to the Smith - Mundt Act whose purpose is and through educational and cultural exchange "to promote a better understanding of the United States in other countries, and to increase enlarge mutual understanding in between the people of the United States the people of other countries ". This law brought the Foreign Leaders Program produced, which resulted in the International Visitor Program (IVP ) in 1952 and was renamed in 2004 to the International Visitor Leadership Program ( IVLP ).

Many former IVLP participants have become leaders later.