This article's starting point is a brief look at the changing political environment in which the preparation of CONFINTEA VI needs to be seen. It seems that the complexity with which people and their organisations have to cope is growing--the world of today is more complex than we had during the last conference in 1997. The UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) is the key institution in the process towards the Brazil conference twelve years later. The article looks at the work done by the CONFINTEA VI Consultative Group, the National Reports on were we are in adult education at the country level, the purpose of a Global Report on Adult Learning and Education (GRALE) coming up, and what we should expect from the regional pre-conferences and the global event as well.