The Pan-European Conference, hosted by the Government of Hungary from 3 to 5 December 2008 in Budapest, is the Regional conference for Europe, North-America and Israel in preparation of the Sixth International Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA VI).
CONFINTEA VI, which will be hosted by Brazil in Belém from 19 to 22 May 2009, seeks to regenerate the international momentum for adult learning and education. The overall thrust of CONFINTEA VI will be to draw attention to the relation and contribution of adult learning and education to sustainable development, conceived comprehensively as including social, economic, ecological and cultural dimensions.
Relevance of Adult Learning and Education in the Region
In a context marked by continuous social and political changes and growing complexity, adult education and learning has assumed a critical importance within lifelong learning and constitutes a key resource and indispensable tool for enabling people to participate fully in their societies and to take responsibility for their own lives.
Given the challenges created by increasing voluntary and forced mobility within and across borders, and confronted with demographic changes, and presenting poverty and exclusion, the social and human capital built up by adult learning and education is of vital importance in the region to create more equitable, democratic and inclusive societies.
Indeed, new legislation, policy changes and the establishment of national qualification frameworks in several countries of the region have manifested an increasing recognition for the economic, social and individual benefits of adult learning and education. Several high level documents of the European Union, incorporating more than half of the countries in the Region, testify to this trend. The Communication on Adult Learning issued by the European Commission in 2006 highlighted the essential contribution of adult learning and education to employability and mobility in modern labour markets and to social inclusion. Subsequently earlier in 2008, the Council of the European Union called upon its Member States to “remove barriers to participation, to increase overall quality and efficiency in adult learning, to speed up the process of validation and recognition and to ensure sufficient investment in and monitoring of the field.”
Dates and Venue of the Conference
The conference will be held from 3 to 5 December 2008 at the Hotel Danubius Helia in Budapest.
Conference Documents
National reports, presentations and other documents prepared by the participants will be distributed in a CD-ROM.
All these documents and presentation files will be made available here, and on the CONFINTEA website at UNESCO.
A Pán-Európai Konferencia egyike az UNESCO által 2008 második felében, illetve 2009 elején rendezett öt regionális konferenciának, amelyek a hatodik Nemzetközi Felnőttoktatási Konferenciát (CONFINTEA VI) készítik elő. A rendezvény 2009. május 19-22. között Brazíliában kerül megrendezésre az érdekképviselet, a politikákat érintő párbeszéd, a felnőttoktatásért és az élethosszig való tanulásért vállalt elköteleződés és cselekvés jegyében. A konferencia a felnőttoktatást az Oktatást mindenkinek (Education for All, EFA) és a Millenniumi fejlesztési célok (Millennium Development Goals, MGD) elnevezésű politikai világprogramok nélkülözhetetlen elemeként ismeri el, valamint megteremti az eszközöket a megfelelő politikai javaslatok végrehajtásához.

ALADIN, the Adult Learning Documentation and Information Network, has been established to support networking and capacity building between documentation centres and libraries in the area of adult learning and literacy.
ALADIN is working towards facilitating global access to information and documentation on adult learning and serving as an information broker between researchers, practitioners and policy makers by:

• sharing relevant information on adult learning;
• correcting the uneven distribution of adult learning documentation and information resources;
• providing training in adult learning knowledge management.

Today it comprises of 95 documentation centres in 47 countries in all regions of the world, with some being complex university libraries and research units, some being small NGO resource centres and others being virtual collections.
Contact: Lisa Krolak, ALADIN Co-ordinator UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning,
Feldbrunnenstrasse 58
20148 Hamburg
Germany
Tel.: (+49) 40 44804133, Fax: (+49) 40 4107723, l.krolaPLEASE@REMOVE_THIS.TEXTk@unesPLEASE@REMOVE_THIS.TEXTco.org.