This publication is the result of close collaboration between the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL), in Hamburg, Germany, and the UNESCO Beirut Office and Regional Bureau for Education in the Arab States. The idea of studying and analysing the best current international practice emerged from an international meeting of experts – Towards a policy framework for securing the recognition, regularization and certification of non-formal education: Creating synergies between formal and non-formal settings in the Arab region – held in Beirut in January 2016. Since then, the issue has risen further up the policy agenda, as the effects of this protracted conflict continue to be felt far beyond Syria’s borders.