The adult learning community has a unique opportunity to engage with the big issues of the times during the coming year. The Learning and Skills Council is due to launch its Strategy for Sustainable Development in 2005 and a series of initiatives and publications is set to follow, including the European Year of Democratic Citizenship, launched this month, and the Commission for Africa report, in April. These initiatives tell a story about the past, and offer a vision for the future that extends beyond 2005. They project the understanding that people live in an interconnected world and that their actions impact on the lives of others. They also reflect a changing world and hold out the possibility that individuals and groups of people can make a difference in a world of global injustice, inequality, insecurity and uncertainty. But, on the other hand, the adult population, who are the target group, may well feel bombarded and overwhelmed by this array of initiatives and the particular brand of enticement they use to encourage participation. The Department for International Development's (DFID) annual surveys on the public's attitudes to development consistently show that people are becoming more aware of global and development issues, but that they don't know what to do about them. Adult educators are aware that the educational response to global and development issues goes beyond one-off or short-term acts of charity. It involves an engagement with the issues and an exploration of how their own actions might contribute to the causes and solutions. This brings to a sharp focus the role of the adult educator in transforming awareness and the availability of information in education. If adult learning in its various settings is about enabling competencies and confidence for life then adult educators clearly have a key role to play at this juncture to facilitate opportunities for learners to access and develop relevant knowledge, skills, values and beliefs in order to respond to the challenges they encounter as lifelong learners in their roles as parents, consumers, tourists, employers/employees, communities of faith, TV viewers, internet users and so on. The author contends that there seems to be no better time than now for all stakeholders to bring together their diverse expertise and experience to make a qualitative difference to adult learning. (Contains 8 online resources.)