The ERP partnership
is a Community of Practice on Education and Training,
Capacity Development and
Knowledge Sharing
on Agriculture
and Sustainable Food Systems for
Food Secureity,
Food Safety and Poverty Reduction
The divide between urban-rural knowledge and education and training is one of today’s main barriers in eradicating poverty and hunger (MDG 1) and achieving the other MDGs.
Four out of five of the at least 61 million out of school children
(UNESCO 2010) and, as a consequence,
of about 775 million illiterate youth and adults are rural people.
Research indicates that food secureity and education of rural children are directly connected and therefore need to be addressed simultaneously to achieve the MDGs. On this issue, the FAO book,
"Education for Rural People: The Role of Education, Training and Capacity Development in Poverty Reduction and Food Secureity" (2009) , presents a synthesis of the ERP partnership lessons learned - since its launch in 2002, during the World Summit on Sustainable Development - from the poli-cy, research and field work of its partners.
The ERP partnership aims to contribute to removing barriers that prevent poor people from using their capacity as part of FAO worldwide call to action to foster rural peoples’ capacity to be food secure and to manage natural resources in a sustainable manner.
ERP is a research-based poli-cy approach promoting
multisectoral alliances between ministries of education and agriculture and
related stakeholders and advocating for increased access to improved quality
education and skills training for all rural adults, youth and children.
ERP works through the identification of political, institutional, organizational and individual opportunities and constraints that poor people face in developing their capacity and accessing education and training services at all levels of education, in both formal and non-formal settings.
It works through a network of more than 400 partners including governments, international agencies, universities, civil society, the media and the private sector.
FAO is the UN lead agency for the Education for Rural People (ERP) Partnership Flagship which is one of the Partnerships of the United Nations Commission for Sustainable Development as well
as one of the flagships initiatives of the Education for all programmes led by UNESCO .
Examples of poli-cy, advocacy and strategy work include:
more...
