This special issue was developed by the Asian-South Pacific Bureau for Adult Education (ASPBAE) in preparation for Unesco's fourth international conference on adult education. A section on "Literacy--A Great Challenge and Important Debate" includes "Why Literacy? (Paul Fordham); "Cooperating or Campaigning for Literacy" (Heribert Hinzen, Jakob Horn, Wolfgang Leumer, Rolf Niemann); comments from Sri Lanka (W. M. K. Wijetunga), Bangladesh (Rezaul Haque), Indonesia (Pepep Sudradjat), Australia (Arch Nelson), and India (K. M. S. Benjamin); "Literacy: The Moving Target" (Carman Hunter); "Thai National Literacy Campaign"; and "Experience from the Field: Literacy--What and How?" (Om Shrivastava). The next section contains observations on the conference by W. M. K. Wijetunga; "Summary of ASPBAE Consultation on Desirable Conference Themes" (Chris Duke); a brief summary of an ASPBAE-Unesco consultation; Unesco Asian Regional Consultation; "Adult Education in Asia Today" (A. Chiba); and 1983 ASPBAE executive meeting minutes. Next, "Prespectives from the Asian Region" contains a report on the 1964 establishment of ASPBAE; "South Asian Examples of Adult/Nonformal Education" (Hwang Jong-Gon); "Village Level Action in India" (Om and Ginny Shrivastava); "Women's Development in Chhani Village" (Rajkumari); "Literacy to Development: The Growth of a Tribal Village" (Manohar Singh); and "Strategies for Development and Peasant Education" (Chanida Chanyapate). The section entitled "What Can the Non-Governmental Organizations Achieve in Adult Education?" includes commentary from Kerala, India (K. S. Pillai); the Indian Adult Education Association (J. C. Saxena); Bangladesh (Osman Ghani); Nepal (Sri Ram Lamichhane); and Sri Lanka (W. A. Jayawardana). (MN)