Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 calls on countries to ‘ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all’ (WEF, 2015). Literacy and numeracy are indispensable not only to the achievement of this goal and the 10 related targets set out in the Education 2030 Framework for Action, but also to meeting the other 16 SDGs. However, literacy and numeracy can only unfold their full potential to ‘transform our world’ if they are approached from a lifelong learning perspective (Hanemann, 2015) and brought closer to people’s lives through integrated, multi-sectoral approaches that draw the focus from supply to demand. Achieving this means working towards ‘literate families’, ‘literate communities’ and ‘literate societies’ made up of independent, confident and effective lifelong learners.