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This paper focuses on the issue of the financing of lifelong learning. Who pays for lifelong learning? What mechanisms can be put in place to finance lifelong learning? What works best with regard to the spending of public money? The paper reviews the emerging economic and social challenges which include globalisation, ageing populations and the advances and proliferation of information and communications technologies. The author suggests that governments have a responsibility to promote and co-finance lifelong learning since it is clear that market-based mechanisms cannot cover the risk of exclusion for disadvantaged groups. Financing mechanisms and instruments are discussed including payroll taxes and training funds, new forms of management of public resources and Individual Learning Accounts (ILAs).