While the western powers credit globalization with facilitating development, Africa continues to face challenges such as poverty, low quality education, HIV/AIDS, and ineffective governance. This article provides an overview of African development since independence arguing that the African states shifted from their service-based policy agenda of the 1960s during the boom and bust period in the 1970s and 1980s, experienced the drastic effects of structural adjustments in the 1990s, and are now attempting to pursue an African renaissance agenda. It demonstrates how adult educators can help create deliberative democracy by working with civil society to engage African communities in public discourse and empower the citizenry.

The introduction to this article on the participatory learning approach to literacy and social change known as REFLECT locates the origins of the approach in the philosophy of Paulo Freire and notes that REFLECT was developed by ACTIONAID in pilot projects in Uganda, Bangladesh, and El Salvador and is now used in 25 countries by 90 groups. REFLECT considers gender equity integral to social change, analyzes the causes of inequalities, creates a process for examining social stratification, addresses conflict as a reality, is an evolving process that embraces innovation, recognizes the importance of individual transformation, and seeks an equitable practice of power at all levels in the process. The article describes how REFLECT sessions are conducted and how they result in women's increased mobility, increased participation in family and community, and changes in the gender division of labor. Examples show how REFLECT sensitizes men as well as women to gender issues, especially if the implementing agency is gender-aware. The article then contrasts the "primer method" of literacy training promoted by the "Women in Development" model to REFLECT's "Gender and Development" (GAD) approach that links literacy to empowerment, raises community consciousness of women's subordination, and creates local-global links. The article concludes by discussing ways to strengthen the GAD/feminist approach in REFLECT, given the fact that it is possible to avoid gender issues in most discussions.