Education for Rural People

Education fo Rural People is a partnership established by the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization Sustainable Development Department to address rural-urban disparities.

About 70 percent of the poor live in rural areas. Education is a basic right in itself and an essential prerequisite for achieving all the Millennium Development Goals [http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/] including reducing poverty, improving the living conditions of rural people and building a food-secure world. Even so, children's access to education in rural areas is still much lower than in urban areas, adult illiteracy is much higher and the quality of education is poorer. This is the reason why, in 2002, during the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), the FAO Sustainable Development Department - Extension, Education and Communication Service (SDRE) and UNESCO established a partnership on Education for Rural People (ERP) [http://www.fao.org/sd/erp/] within the International Alliance Against Hunger (IAAH) [http://www.fao.org/docrep/006/y9550e/y9550e00.htm] and Education for All (EFA) [http://portal.unesco.org/education/en/ev.php-URL_ID=50558&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html] initiatives. The partnership seeks to address rural-urban disparities, which are a serious concern to governments and the international community as a whole. The partnership, led by FAO [http://www.fao.org] , is a call for member countries, United Nations agencies, Civil Society, academic institutions and private sector for coordinated, increased efforts in targeting rural people’s needs by promoting increased access to quality basic education.

The flagship’s objectives

• Building awareness on the importance of ERP as a crucial step to achieve all the Millennium Development Goals, and particularly, eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education and promoting gender equity.

• Overcoming the urban/rural gap in education.

• Increasing access to basic education for rural people. • Improving the quality of basic education in rural areas.

• Fostering the national capacity to plan and implement ERP as part of national Education for All and Rural Development plans.

The flagship’s activities At the national level:

• Technical support to countries willing to address the basic educational needs of the rural people by formulating specific strategies as part of national Education for All and Rural Development plans.

At the international level: • Advocate and mobilize partnerships for ERP by concentrating on strategic global, regional and international events, and encouraging the same within countries.

• Support the exchange of good practices and knowledge on ERP.

Main publication:Education for rural development, towards new policy responses [ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/006/ad423e/ad423e00.pdf]