The 2021 Futures of Education report calls for a new social contract for education, with recognition of an extended right to education throughout life. It represents an important restatement of the principles of UNESCO, and particularly its historic focus on our shared humanity, the universal right to education and its rich potential in addressing social, economic and political challenges. The need for a formal recognition of a universal entitlement to lifelong learning was also highlighted in the United Nations Secretary General’s Common Agenda report (also published in 2021) and is...

Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is a region comprising 46 countries, dependent territories and overseas departments. It is characterized by a unique combination of cultures, languages and ethnicities. The states of the region officially recognize 826 indigenous peoples with 44.8 million members and 125 million individuals of African descent. This diversity, however, is accompanied by a further regional characteristic: structural inequality.

In 2019, one year prior to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, a report on the economic outlook for LAC published by the Organisation...

Given that the promise to ‘leave no one behind’ (LNOB) is central to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its goals (UNSDG, 2022), it is crucial to promote lifelong learning in sub-Saharan Africa, with a particular focus on young people and adults, and on marginalized and/or vulnerable groups. Illiteracy, low levels of education and a lack of lifelong learning opportunities across the region are strongly linked to low productivity, low incomes and poor health, particularly in combination with latent conflicts and insecurity linked to terror, migration and other human and...

The region is facing increasing challenges in the field of literacy and adult education due to the political instability that affects some of the countries, resulting in waves of migration. International and regional organizations are providing continuous support to countries of the region to help them build responsive policies and systems of good governance in the field of education in general, and in the fields of adult learning and education as well as lifelong learning in particular.

In preparation for the Seventh International Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA VII),...

The Regional CONFINTEA VII Conference for Asia and the Pacific was held virtually on 22 September 2021. 237 participants from countries across the region attended, including ministry of education officials, NGOs, national and regional education representatives, academia, the private sector, and adult learning and education/lifelong learning stakeholders. This outcome document was developed based on the discussions held and contributions made during the conference.

Asia and the Pacific is home to one third of the world’s population, including more than 60 per cent of the world’s...

In preparation of the seventh International Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA VII), the Slovenian Ministry for Education, Science and Sport1 and the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) organized a dual online conference entitled ‘Adult learning and education – The resilient response to future challenges’.

The Europe and North American region is a diverse one, geographically, economically, politically, socially, ethnically, linguistically and culturally. Countries in the region do, however, have one demographic characteristic in common: an ageing population. Young...

Responding to and recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic remains an enormous challenge for cities worldwide. Lifelong learning lays the foundation for healthy and resilient cities. Hence, these municipalities are working hard to promote learning for health, and to build long-term resilience among their local populations so that they can deal both with the pandemic and with future emergencies, including those caused by climate change.

The fifth International Conference on Learning Cities (ICLC 5) was hosted by UIL in collaboration with Yeonsu City, Republic of Korea, and took place...

The publication Inclusive lifelong learning in cities: Policies and practices for vulnerable presents conceptual frameworks for inclusive learning, good practices in learning cities and recommendations for the future.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had an enormous impact on life in cities, as well as exposing and exacerbating almost all forms of inequality. Access to high-calibre, resilient infrastructure, reliable basic services and decent jobs must be provided to all urban and rural dwellers. achieving this means ensuring learning opportunities in cities are of high quality...

773 million youth and adults worldwide still lack basic literacy skills, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic jeopardizes hard-won gains in literacy provision. Many literacy providers have argued that systems around the world were insufficiently prepared to leverage technologies and provide online or distance education that would mitigate the total disruption of literacy programmes caused by the pandemic. Low capacities along with low financial investment and political will have been cited as the main contributors to this lack of preparedness.

Open and distance learning (ODL) is...

Between March and June 2020, UIL hosted a series of webinars to explore how learning cities gauged the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in individual contexts, and how they were responding to the sudden, emergent and urgent challenges it posed. In this publication, we present 13 responses by learning cities to this unfolding global issue across five themes: city planning; continuation of education; culture; equity and inclusion; and public health. These snapshots span the world regions of Africa (Cameroon), Asia and the Pacific (China, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Republic of Korea),...