The International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) brings participants each year to the United States from all over the world to meet and confer with their professional counterparts and to experience the U.S. firsthand. The program operates under authority of the Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act of 1961 (Fulbright-Hays Act). Its emphasis is to increase mutual understanding through communication at the personal and professional levels.
The U. S. Department of State directs the program in cooperation with a wide range of non-profit organizations which depend on the willingness of their communities to interact with foreign dignitaries and on a membership base interested in interacting with delegates in a more informal manner.
The visitors, current or potential leaders in government, politics, the media, education, and other fields, are selected by U.S. officials overseas. More than 290 current and former Heads of State, 2,000 cabinet-level ministers, and many other distinguished world leaders in government and the private sector have participated in the IVLP including:
President Anwar Sadat of Egypt
Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the United Kingdom
Prime Minister Tony Blair of the United Kingdom
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of the United Kingdom
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of India
President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan
President Alvaro Uribe Velez of Colombia
President Nicolas Sarkozy of France
Prime Minister Helen Clark of New Zealand
(Taken in part from http://exchanges.state.gov/education/IVP/)
