Monthly Archives: September 2016

Global Report on Adult Learning and Education

The third Global Report on Adult Learning and Education (GRALE III) draws on monitoring surveys completed by 139 UNESCO Member States to develop a differentiated picture of the global state of adult learning and education (ALE). It evaluates countries’ progress in fulfilling the commitments they made in the Belém Framework for Action, which was adopted at the Sixth International Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA VI) in 2009. In addition, the report examines the impact of ALE on three major areas: health and well-being; employment and the labour market; and social, civic and community life.

GRALE III provides policymakers, researchers and practitioners with compelling evidence for the wider benefits of ALE across all of these areas. In so doing, it highlights some of the major contributions that ALE can make to realizing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The reports are published in English and French.

Download the executive summary at http://uil.unesco.org/system/files/grale-3-executive-summary.pdf

The full report is available at http://www.uil.unesco.org/system/files/grale-3.pdf

International Literacy Day September 8

International Literacy Day (ILD) shines a spotlight on global literacy needs, which goes hand in hand with the International Literacy Association’s (ILA) mission: literacy for everyone, everywhere. ILA offers a  free activity kit to educators to help their students learn about another country and broaden their worldview with ILD activities that focus on Jamaica, a small island nation with a rich history and colorful culture. To get the kit, sign up at http://www.literacyworldwide.org/about-us/news-events/international-literacy-day/get-the-activity-kit

Research report on women’s health and literacy

To mark the fiftieth anniversary of International Literacy Day on 8 September 2016, the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) has published a research paper entitled Promoting Health and Literacy for Women’s Empowerment. Written by Dr Anna Robinson-Pant, this paper is the third in a series of studies on literacy and women’s empowerment.

The paper discusses the links between health, well-being, women’s empowerment and education, focusing on the role of literacy. It argues that cross-sectoral approaches involving stakeholder collaboration across these three areas will be essential in realizing Sustainable Development Goal 5: to ‘achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls’.

Literacy, health and women’s empowerment in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

By identifying good practices from all world regions, this paper shows how literacy programmes with a health component will contribute to achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Providing lifelong learning opportunities to women and girls enables them to make informed decisions about their health and that of their communities. The urgent need for these opportunities is apparent when we consider that women constitute two-thirds of the world’s 758 million adults who cannot read or write a simple sentence.

This publication includes information on programmes that can also be found on the UNESCO Effective Literacy and Numeracy Practices Database (LitBase).

The first two publications of the Literacy and Women’s Empowerment series are: