Dear Reader,  

I am pleased to send you herewith the 2022 Annual Report of the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL). 

Last year was one of highlights for the Institute. We organized the Seventh International Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA VII), leading to a commitment by 149 UNESCO Member States to translate the vision of a right to lifelong learning into reality, increase financial investment and enhance adult participation in quality learning programmes. We substantially expanded our capacity-building activities with a series of workshops dedicated to developing lifelong learning policies, a range of new online courses covering different aspects of learning, and the rollout of our technology training for literacy educators in four countries. We published flagship publications such as the fifth Global Report on Adult Learning and Education (GRALE 5) and Making Lifelong Learning a Reality: A Handbook. And we celebrated our 70th anniversary, looking back on key achievements and paving the way for the promotion of lifelong learning in the future. 

We are proud of the progress we have made in 2022, which has only been possible thanks to the collaborative efforts of UNESCO Member States, UIL’s Governing Board, National Commissions for UNESCO, and many other important UIL partners, all of whom contributed to our activities across the globe.  

I would sincerely like to thank our host country, the Federal Republic of Germany, and specifically its Federal Foreign Office; the City of Hamburg; the Governments of Norway, Sweden and the Kingdom of Morocco; and Shanghai Open University for its invaluable financial support to our Institute. 

I warmly invite you to explore our annual report for 2022 and look forward to our future collaboration. 

Sincerely yours, 

David Atchoarena 

Director, UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning