Because a growing proportion of the world's working population is in the informal sector (in work areas generally outside the sphere of state protection), planners of vocational training for adults must pay closer attention to those concepts of teaching and learning that have relevance for the informal sector, and they must develop strategies for building bridges between various existing forms of formal and informal education and training. The following areas must receive special attention: vocational competencies in the informal sector; the relationship between learners' mother tongue and the language in which they learn basic educational skills; diversification of technical and vocational education; government and nonformal education; motivation for initiative and action; traditional apprenticeship and informal learning; the practice of securing a livelihood by unifying household and enterprise; adult learning in the context of self-help organizations; and strategies for integrating social networks into educational programs. Vocational-technical education and training programs for adults should be emancipatory, based on a combination of traditional and informal methods of acquiring vocational competence, and designed to help individuals and groups from the informal sector become aware of their existing competencies and put those competencies to use in their daily routines. (Contains 16 references) (MN)