Taking adult literacy as the central theme, UNESCO and the OECD recently released two international reports: the Global Report on Adult Learning and Education, second edition (GRALE II) by UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) and the first results of the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) by the OECD in July and October this year. Although both reports aim at altering the behaviours and actions of governments towards adult learning and education, they present substantive differences in the way of constructing issues and identifying solutions. In fact, GRALE II suggests ’rethinking literacy’ and PIAAC offers ‘skills outlook’ for the 21^st century. This article presents the origins, objectives and differences of these two reports to help understand them and reflect on their policy implications.

The Cities Learning Together conference was convened in Hong Kong in November 2013, by the EU Centre at RMIT in conjunction with PASCAL International Observatory and the Hong Kong Institute of Education. Together with seven other partners, the conference was designed to focus on major challenges facing cities and communities within cities, and to explore the ways in which learning can assist in addressing those challenges. The concept of ‘learning cities’ has been the focus of this kind of thinking for some time, initially in Europe, with strong support from the OECD and the European Union, and more recently in Asia. The PASCAL International Exchanges (PIE) program has been one site where these ideas have been explored directly, while UNESCO conducted the International Conference on Learning Cities in October 2013 in Beijing, China.