ERP Home
 

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 Security,
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 security 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 Security" (2009) , presents a synthesis of the ERP partnership lessons learned - since its launch in 2002, during the World Summit on Sustainable Development - from the policy, 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 policy 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 policy, advocacy and strategy work include: more...



FOCUS ON

Education first, a global initiative

Education is the basic building block of every society. It is the single best investment countries can make towards building prosperous, healthy and equitable societies. In order to renew and reinvigorate global commitments to education, United Nations Secretary-General BAN Ki-moon has launched the Education First initiative to put every child in school, improve the quality of learning, and foster global citizenship.

Knowledge Sharing between the Universities Members of the ERP partnership, and supporting capacity development for Food Security.

ERP is included in the FAO Knowledge Networks community centre

The ERP web site had about 200.000 visits in 2011

toolkit3.jpg
   

Posterefa.jpg