Beyond the dogged expectations that Sub-Saharan African universities' adult and continuing education needs to play a more visible key role in dealing with the challenges of HIV and AIDS, environmental pollution and excruciating poverty, the twenty-first century has brought in at its heels debates surrounding relevance in the era of an upsurge in the cultivation of the knowledge-based economies. As other professional areas of development are seemingly becoming more attractive to the main target populations for the study of and specialisations in adult and continuing education, the time is appropriate for us to explore how we may streamline our provision and make them more responsive to the challenges of our time, thereby moving out of the traditional existence on the periphery. This paper explores how Sub-Saharan universities' adult and continuing education departments could revamp their programmes such that they can adequately assist the region in creating learning societies required for entry into the knowledge-based economies of the twenty-first century.