This booklet, which was produced as a follow-up to the Fifth International Conference on Adult Education, examines literacy in the world and its major regions. After a brief overview of the workshop from which the booklet emerged, the need to reconceptualize literacy as a tool for learning throughout life is emphasized. Discussed next are the following: the sharp differences between literacy rates in industrialized and developing countries and the relationship between illiteracy and other aspects of human and social development; literacy rates and literacy education trends and needs in Africa, the Arab States, and Latin America; lessons learned from large-scale literacy programs; the role of local communities, associations, and businesses in making literacy education a component of local development; and strategies for using literacy education to improve the situation of women and to help them gain responsibility and autonomy. The following are among the points made in the booklet's conclusion: (1) practitioners must be trained to recognize the problems in development; (2) development agencies and educators must understand each other's language; (3) institutions and structures must be created in the context of initiatives; (4) the human, financial, and institutional capital elements of local development must be emphasized; and (5) literacy must be imparted in the local and national languages before being imparted in global languages. (MN)