Agneta Lind

Agneta Lind’s name is synonymous with the field of adult literacy and international development. Over a more than thirty-five-year career, she championed adult literacy, particularly in Africa, through her work with the Swedish International Development Cooperation Authority (SIDA), governments, UNESCO, universities, and individual practitioners. She served as an expert consultant to numerous African countries, as well as some countries in Asia and Latin America. Lind consulted for the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning and the German Adult Education Association, among other organizations. It is her engaged, consistent commitment to adult literacy internationally that stands out as her lasting contribution to the field of adult education.

A native of Sweden, Lind lived and worked for long periods in African countries as well as in her home country. In her doctoral thesis (1988) for the University of Stockholm, she focused on adult literacy campaigns in Mozambique—a subject that shaped the trajectory of her career that followed. In 1990, her coauthored book on the topic, Adult Literacy in the Third World: A Review of Objectives and Strategies, was published and well-received internationally.

Lind began her work with SIDA several years earlier, in 1983, serving in various capacities including as head of the education division from 1998 to 2001. Through SIDA, Lind brought administrative, financial, and intellectual resources to a wide range of people in African, Asian, and Latin American countries. As part of her work, she produced country-specific studies, which then directly impacted policy debates and discussions. Her work in Namibia, for instance, yielded the book Free to Speak Up: Overall Evaluation of the National Literacy Programme in Namibia (1996). Lind’s findings, reported in the book, were used to improve the country’s national adult basic education program.

Throughout her tenure at SIDA, from which she retired in 2010, Lind sought to strengthen the capacities of governments, NGOs, and universities to effectively implement adult literacy programs. Her research and evaluation could be directly linked in many cases to institutional, national, or international policy developments. She paid special attention to gender issues in adult literacy by analyzing women’s motivation and participation in literacy programs. This helped fill a gap in previous literature as Lind’s wide range of publications were referenced widely by scholars and practitioners.

In addition to her work for SIDA, Lind was endorsed as associate professor in education at the University of Stockholm; professor of lifelong learning at the University of Western Cape, South Africa; and visiting professor in international and comparative education at Addis Ababa University. She served as special literacy adviser of the Education for All: Literacy for Life global monitoring report in 2006.

Lind has been accoladed for her understanding of people and environments in vastly different parts of the world and for her global perspective. Through her career at SIDA and her work for international agencies like UNESCO and the German Adult Education Association, she has helped to keep adult basic education and literacy on a range of governmental and international development agendas. Lind has remained committed, throughout, to using her work to improve the lives of poor and marginalized people worldwide.