CONFINTEA VII & MFA Resources

Adult Learning Special Issue: CONFINTEA VII, Volume 35 Issue 2, May 2024

Every 12 to 13 years since the late 1940’s, UNESCO has convened representatives from Member States to develop a roadmap to guide the development of policies, programs, and practices for adult education throughout the world. Held on June 15-17, 2022, in Marrakech, Morocco, the Seventh International Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA VII), Adult Learning for Sustainable Development: A Transformative Agenda, focused on creating adult learning and education policies and practices within a lifelong learning perspective and within the framework of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). More than 1,100 people, representing 149 countries attended (in person and online). Authors of this Special Issue include the non-governmental “team” who represented the United States (Judith Alamprese, Mejai Avoseh, Marcie Boucouvalas, Linda Morris, and Christy Rhodes), along with Wendy Griswold, then Director of AAACE’s Commission for International Adult Education. The articles are:

Marcie Boucouvalas	Introduction: Special Issue of Adult Learning CONFINTEA VII
Judith Alamprese	Adult Learning and Education in Digital Environments: Learning from Global Efforts to Promote Digital Literacy and Basic Skills of Vulnerable Populations
Mejai Avoseh	CONFINTEA Vll Marrakech Framework and the Challenge of and Urgency for Active Citizenship Education
Wendy Griswold	CONFINTEA VII and the Call to Climate Action: Clarifying Roles for Adult Learning and Education
Linda Morris	Developing and Sustaining Future Workforces: Focusing on Work and Learning
Christy Rhodes	Moving Forward in the Global Community: Reflections from CONFINTEA VII
Christy Rhodes	Review of CONFINTEA Resources

Additional Resources

For copies of CONFINTEA VII Seventh International Conference on Adult Education: Final Report; Adult Learning and Education for Sustainable Development: A Transformative Agenda and its roadmap for the future, the Marrakech Framework for Action (MFA), see https://www.uil.unesco.org/en/seventh-international-conference-adult-education/resources.

View CONFINTEA VII recordings and presentations at https://www.uil.unesco.org/en/seventh-international-conference-adult-education?hub=39.

The UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning hosts CONFINTEA and offers conference reports, conference programs, and interim reports. They also offer a CONFINTEA VII blog series and recordings of panels and presentations at https://www.uil.unesco.org/en/seventh-international-conference-adult-education?hub=39.

In 2014 UNESCO’s Office in Brazil published Adult Education in Retrospective: 60 Years of CONFINTEA byTimothy Ireland and Carlos Spezia. Supporting their assertations with the inclusion of pertinent historical documents, they contend that these international conferences are among the most influential forums in international adult education. They illustrate how conferees have debated and established the principle guidelines for global policy for the period between one CONFINTEA and the next. See https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED561053.

A special issue of the International Review of Education, Volume 68 (2) 2022, explores the connections between CONFINTEA and the 2030 Agenda of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), https://link.springer.com/journal/11159/volumes-and-issues/68-2. See especially “Reimagining Adult Education and Lifelong Learning for All: Historical and Critical Perspectives,” by Benavot, Hoppers, Lockhart and Hinzen (pp. 165-194) at https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000382352.

Developed by the European Association for the Education of Adults (EAEA), CONFINTEA VII: Marrakech Framework for Action provides a concise, comprehensive view of CONFINTEA VII and the MFA.

PIMA (Promoting, Interrogating and Mobilizing Adult Education) a global network of adult and lifelong learning educators, activists, and scholars describes actions taken to implement MFA recommendations in PIMA Bulletin No 50 CONFINTEA VII Follow-Up (https://www.pimanetwork.com/post/pima-bulletin-no-50).