Creating alliances with civil society within the Education for Rural People initiative

FAO, the UNESCO Institute of Education Planning and the European civil society united forces to carry-out a two-year program known as "Education for rural people and food security: a participatory approach to poverty reduction" in support of the global flagship partnership initiative, led by FAO on Education for Rural People (ERP) and funded by the European Commission.

The project, to be developed in 2004-2006, aims at consolidating the network of stakeholders engaged in supporting greater access to quality basic education for rural people focusing specifically on bridging the efforts of civil society in the North and South, and those of UN Organizations and governments engaged in ERP. The initiative will focus on capacity building of NGOs to enable them to undertake activities in favor of ERP, especially in liaising with other stakeholders. The project will also focus on fostering awareness of the importance of ERP as part of the Education for All national plans and of rural development strategies. It is also an example of an initiative to be implemented within the International Alliance Against Hunger.

The initiative, formulated by ACRA - an Italian NGO specialized in rural development - in collaboration with the Education Group of the Extension, Education and Communication Service of FAO (SDRE) will liaise with several NGOs from Europe, Africa and Latin America.

Education for rural people is key in the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals and specifically goals one, two and three (poverty reduction and food security, universal primary education and gender imbalances) since the majority of the poor, of the food insecure, of the illiterate as well as the main gender imbalances are found among rural people. Thus the challenge of building the capacity of rural people through education and training requires new alliances and strong partnerships.

The shared objectives and complementarities of roles between NGOs, FAO, UNESCO and the rest of the members of the ERP global partnership is expected to strengthen the impact of the initiative at policy and grassroots level.

Italian NGOs were among the first partners to join the Education for Rural People flagship initiative launched in Johannesburg during the World Summit on Sustainable Development by the Director Generals of FAO and UNESCO. The Flagship has now more than 85 members.

Another joint initiative with civil society recently held included the presentation of the ERP flagship initiative during the Annual Conference entitled "Including the Excluded" promoted by the Community Colleges for International Development (CCID) and held in Orlando, USA from 14-17th February. The opening topic of the conference was in fact the Education for Rural People (ERP) flagship. For more information on the conference, please click here.

For more information on the role of the Italian NGOs in ERP please read the "Compendium of Experiences of Italian NGOs in Education for Rural People."

To read a previous interview on Education for Rural People please click here.

To download the leaflet of the Education for Rural People Initiative, please click here.