The CONFINTEA V Midterm Review Conference
A key to sustainable development in the 21st century and a means for bringing about justice,
peace and solidarity around the globe is adult education and learning. In order to assess what
has been achieved towards accomplishing these goals worldwide in the past six years, more than
300 participants from over 90 countries took part in the CONFINTEA V Midterm Review Conference
held in Bangkok, Thailand, 6 -11 September 2003. The conference was organized by the UNESCO
Institute for Education in collaboration with the UNESCO Asia and Pacific Regional Bureau for
Education and with support from the Department of Non-formal Education of the Ministry of
Education of Thailand. It brought together members of governments with representatives of United
Nations agencies, non-governmental organizations, universities and research institutions. They
met to follow up on the implementation of commitments and recommendations made at the Fifth
International Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA V), held in July 1997 in Hamburg, and
to prepare the ground for CONFINTEA VI, which will take place in 2009.A series of thematic workshops addressed the basic contexts of adult education and learning. These included: democracy; poverty; literacy; work; gender; health and the environment; higher education institutions; documentation and information networking; teacher training and the quality of adult-learning programs; monitoring and evaluation; museums, libraries and cultural heritage; information and communication technologies; the needs of special groups: persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples, refugees and migrants, and prisoners; finally, international co-operation and solidarity.
Five sessions were held on regional reviews of Africa, the Arab States, Asia-Pacific, Europe and North America, and Latin America and the Caribbean. They were supplemented by fifty country reviews presented along with the findings of the International Council for Adult Education (ICAE). In a concluding round-table discussion, representatives of the United Nations Fund for Population Activity, the European Union, the German Ministry of Education and Research, the World Bank and a former Latin American Minister of Education spoke to the foremost challenges facing adult education and learning in today's rapidly changing world.
A major outcome of the meeting lies in its Call for Action and
Accountability, which is included
in the Synthesis Report prepared for UNESCO's General Conference ("Recommitting to Adult Education
and Learning" PDF-file 53 KB). Participants in the
review came to the conclusion that despite the promises made in 1997, adult education and learning
has not yet received the attention which it warrants in recent national educational reforms and
international drives to eliminate poverty and illiteracy and provide education for all. Their
assessment highlighted numerous policy and legislative innovations, an increased tide of
participation in adult education and learning, and significant advances in the empowerment
of women. Nonetheless, they found that the ability of adult education and learning to contribute
to establishing a world of democracy and peace and its potential to support struggles against
poverty and violence, HIV/AIDS, and environmental destruction, among other problems, are not
being adequately realized. In warning that declines in public funding for adult education
threaten to erode what gains have been made, participants were unanimous in calling for renewed
commitment to these goals and better accountability for their attainment, greater sharing of
national and international resources and more creative partnerships between governments, civil
society and the private sector.
Among the more than 300 participants, some members of the International Adult Learners Week
network were able to join the meeting, namely from Australia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Jamaica,
Kenya, Mali, Russia, Serbia & Montenegro, South Africa, Swaziland, the UK, and Switzerland.
As the launch of International Adult Learners Week in September 2000 had been a direct outcome
of CONFINTEA V, the network contributed to the CONFINTEA Review by means of the International
Adult Learners Week brochure ("International
Adult Learners Week - Six Years After CONFINTEA V" PDF-file 5700 KB). The brochure is taking stock of the global learning festivals
movement and delineates the current trends and future potentialities. Testimonies of coordinators
and learners as well as photos and other visual elements round up this collage and illustrate
the wealth of the current learning festivals landscape. In a small informal meeting attended by a few of the ALW coordinators present at the Bangkok meeting, plans were discussed to organize an International ALW event next year around September 8 (International Literacy Day) in South Africa in the framework of the "Ten Years of Democracy" celebration. A programme will be drafted by the ALW team in South Africa and UIE, and then enriched by a small task force, in order to be shared and finalized with all International ALW network members later on.
