This paper highlights some tensions regarding lifelong learning discourses for countries which are listed in the lower part of international development indexes. Such countries are often referred to collectively as the "South", though this represents a political focus rather than geographical accuracy and usually represents those formerly colonised countries that are affected by international aid agendas, as opposed to those in the "North" that are identified as advanced industrialised countries. This discussion follows recent concerns (for example by Torres 2003) that the dominant discourse for lifelong learning is articulated as a priority for the North while the learning priority for countries in the South are reduced to basic education, as evidenced in internationally agreed development targets such as the Millennium Development Goals. It is also a response to further calls (for example by Rogers 2003, 700) to articulate "real alternatives" for the South, and for "more theoretical" work on "lifelong learning for the countries of the South" (Youngman 2003, 114). One of this paper's arguments is that the "North-South" divide of policy agendas for educational reform is symbolic of other divisive discourses and behaviours by the international aid community that are constructed in the name of development. Its other argument is that the South has its own context-specific perspectives that can help to shape a more global lifelong learning vision.