31 March - 2 April 2009
Bonn, Germany

The ERP coordination unit organized a workshop on Educating for food security: the contribution of Education for Sustainable Development during the UNESCO World Conference on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). The workshop highlighted that Education and specifically Education for Rural People, is essential for reducing poverty and hunger, improving living conditions of rural people, enhancing agriculture and for building a sustainable and food secure world. People - not institutions or technology - are the driving force of development. The workshop highlighted that Education for Rural People, is the neglected key to food security and to achieving the MDGs.

The conference was organized by UNESCO and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, in cooperation with the German Commission for UNESCO and it is one of UNESCO's four global Education Conferences organised in 2008-2009 to discuss education priorities.

Conference participants exchanged best practices on Education for Sustainable Development from all world regions and developped mechanisms for enhanced cooperation in the implementation of the UN Decade, especially focusing on the exchange between developing countries, those in transition and industrialized countries.

At the end of the conference, a declaration reflecting the debates and proposing guidelines for the implementation of the UN Decade in its second half was adopted and discussed by 50 Ministers, and participants coming from over 150 countries. The declaration mentions ERP.