Many international organizations recognize El Sistema as a unique program, worthy of being implemented in all the world’s nations, particularly in countries that are seeking to reduce the levels of poverty, illiteracy, and exclusion among young population.

Many music education projects have been modeled after the Venezuelan program in more than 25 countries. Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, England, Guatemala, Honduras, Italy, Jamaica, India, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Scotland, South Korea, Trinidad and Tobago, United States, and Uruguay are among them.

El Sistema has also inspired the OAS to promote the creation of the Youth Orchestra of the Americas (which made its debut in New York in 2000) and launch the Orchestra Program for Youth at Risk in the Caribbean in 2009. The Ibero-American Youth Orchestra was likewise founded. It made its debut in 1997, with support from the Andrés Bello-Unesco agreement, at the 7th Ibero-American Summit of Heads of States. Also inspired by El Sistema, the Andean Development Corporation —the financial arm of the Andean Community trade bloc (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru)— has helped create a system of youth choirs.

Musequality, a charity set up to support the development of music projects for underprivileged children in the developing world, was inspired by El Sistema and other music education programs for young people implemented around the world. Its aim, like that of El Sistema, is to give vulnerable children the chance to learn skills that offer them a route out of poverty, keeping them away from drugs, violence and crime.

In November 1995, UNESCO appointed maestro José Antonio Abreu as a special delegate for the development of a world system of youth and children’s orchestras and choirs, aiming at the promotion of the Venezuelan model across the world.

In 2009, El Sistema in partnership with the New England Conservatory of Music, the TED Prize, TED, and the Quincy Jones MusiQ Consortium, among others, established El Sistema USA, a support and advocacy network that will grow to provide comprehensive information on El Sistema philosophy and methodology, and host a variety of resources that will aid those building, expanding and supporting El Sistema programs throughout the world.The first initiative of El Sistema USA is a postgraduate certificate program for accomplished young musicians who desire to become ambassadors of El Sistema and who are committed to developing it outside of Venezuela.

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