The real and urgent threats to peace and international security are exclusion, poverty and underdevelopment and all the woes that accompany them. Yet, yesterday as today, education is among the best responses - sometimes the only response - that society has to offer: education for all, education for development, education for justice and liberty and peace. Thus, the account that follows of UNESCO’s activities in education is a record of continuity as well as change: of the rapid emergence of new situations and unexpected circumstances, but also of an enduring faith in education as the best means and preparation for meeting the unknown challenges of the future. Education remains today, as it was yesterday and will be tomorrow, the pre-eminent means for forging the tools of reason and the instruments of development. While the world has been fundamentally transformed, UNESCO’s constitutional mission of constructing the defences of peace in the minds of men remains as vital and challenging today, on the eve of a new millennium, as it was at the Organization’s birth.