35 adult education advocates and practitioners from over 10 countries in the Asia Pacific region convened in Khandala, Maharashtra from July 15-17, 2008 for an Asia Pacific CSO Strategizing Workshop  for Adult Education Advocacy titled “Charting the Civil Society Road Map to CONFINTEA 6”.

 

In May 2009, UNESCO will convene the Sixth International Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA 6) in Belem, Brazil - twelve (12) years after the international community endorsed the 1997 Hamburg Declaration and Platform of Action codifying a set of commitments to promote adult education and learning.  These commitments were reiterated in the 2000 World Education Conference in Dakar, where governments in the North and South committed to halving the number of adult illiterates by 2015 (EFA Goal 4) and to expanding the provision of like skills and adult learning opportunities especially for young adults (EFA Goal 3). These commitments were affirmed within a period of optimism: when the global community boldly agreed to finally rid the world of wide-scale poverty in this lifetime – and recognized the critical role of education in winning this battle. CONFINTEA 6 and its various preparatory processes will be important for adult education advocates, practitioners and learners to take stock of the state of adult education and learning in the world – and how governments and the international community have fared in their promises to provide adult education support to all their citizens.

 

As a regional civil society organization committed to advancing the right of ALL to education and learning throughout life, ASPBAE organized the Asia Pacific CSO Strategising workshop to enable a strong civil society, Asia Pacific voice and presence in the CONFINTEA 6 processes. The workshop thus focused on developing consensus on and commitment to an advocacy action plan for 2008-2009 with clearly articulated positions and change objectives on agreed priority policy issues especially along the areas of quality adult literacy and adult education, life skills responsive to learning needs of marginalized groups, adult education legislation, governance and financing.

A substantial set of policy recommendations were identified along these areas. These will form part of an Outcomes Document which will be crafted by ASPBAE and disseminated as a guide to members and partners in their advocacy planning, lobbying and policy positioning for CONFINTEA 6 and other policy spaces addressing adult and basic education.

In the concluding session, the participants also defined a set of “MUST HAVES“, or the main CSO policy targets for CONFINTEA 6:

• Agreement on strong and effective monitoring mechanisms to be established for CONFINTEA 6 commitments, based on time-bound goals and targets; The Global Report on Adult Learning and Education (GRALE) which will be released in CONFINTEA 6 should form part of this regular monitoring/tracking mechanism.
• GCE-ActionAid Benchmarks on Quality Adult Literacy to be endorsed and committed to.
• Budget /Finance targets agreed upon: Governments to allocate at least 6% of the Education Budget for adult education, of which 3% to be reserved for adult literacy programmes.
• Increase in ODA for adult literacy and adult education in the framework of the EFA goals and targets. Aid should become more responsive, transparent, participatory and untied - without conditionalities. The EFA Fast Track Initiative to include adult education and literacy components, and ensure efficient and prompt delivery of financing support.
• Adult literacy and adult education plans and targets form part of the education sector and over-all poverty eradication plans of governments and are fully costed and resourced.
• Government to commit to establishing relevant data collection and assessment mechanisms for adult literacy and education; the international community to fully support these financially and with demand-driven, context-based capacity-building support
• Governments commit to strong inter-agency coordination mechanisms at the national level for planning, implementation and monitoring of adult education and learning programmes. CSOs should be well-represented in these spaces as full partners.
• Governments commit to putting in place, national AE legislation and policy, where absent

In reaffirming commitment to the critical role of adult education in development specifically in Asia and the Pacific, as well as in building alliances among kindred advocates, the participants also drew up concrete plans and next steps. Regionally coordinated action was agreed upon along the following key strategies and activities especially for CONFINTEA 6:

• Accelerated efforts at constituency building – explore use of dialogues around the national reports for CONFINTEA 6
• Engaging National Reports on CONFINTEA 6 or coming up with CSO shadow reports
• Coordinated input to the Regional report for CONFINTEA 6 and GRALE through assessments/case studies/exemplars from CSO experiences and databases
• Citizens reports around the GCE-Action Aid Benchmarks on Quality Adult Literacy; and in adult literacy financing
• Media Campaign and mobilisations around Literacy Day, Global Action Week for adult literacy and adult education especially mobilising learners and their forums
• Greater media engagement on adult literacy and adult education: highlight that Asia Pacific has largest numbers of adult illiterates; higher costs to society of adult illiteracy ; social benefits of literate/learning societies
• Work towards ensuring credible CSO representatives form part of the government delegations to the CONFINTEA 6 Asia Pacific PrepCom in South Korea and in the CONFINTEA 6 Conference in Brazil
• Coordinate closely with the National Task forces established in the LIFE countries in the region:  these are opportunities for CSOs to participate and influence the shaping of adult literacy policies and programmes within the LIFE mechanism, informed by lessons from their experience.

Finally the participants also resolved to engage more actively with each other and ASPBAE to develop synchronized campaign activities and action plans for their own countries based on the key demands and the next steps as outlined above. ASPBAE affirmed priority to sustaining an adult education campaign for CONFINTEA 6 and beyond.

For further information on ASPBAE preparations for CONFINTEA 6, please contact Maria Khan at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it and/or Tanvir Mohammad Muntasim at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it