Skills and capacity development for food security and poverty reduction

1. Skills and capacity development for food security and poverty reduction Lavinia Gasperini, FAO Senior Officer, Agricultural Education, Education for Rural People Partnership ( http://www.fao.org/erp/en/ ) Paper presented at the Third International Congress on Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Building Skills for Work and Life, China, Shanghai, May 2012

2. 1) Urban Bias • Technical and Vocational Agricultural Education and Training (TVAET) skills training and colonialism: The Rural “Stigma” • A TVET longstanding prevailing priority: urban industry and services • 1980-90. Inadequate resource allocation for the agriculture and rural development sector and 1990 for TVET and TVAET • The World Bank policy on TVAET (1980; 1990-2000; Recent). The example of Mozambiques’PAD 2000 • Secondary and post secondary TVAET: is attended mainly by urban students

3. 2) Rural Challenge • Rural people: who are they? • They provide means for survival to urban people but have low national priority • Agriculture is the world’s largest employer In developing countries it is the largest • The majority of the world youth is rural • Woman and youth prevalence in agriculture

4. 3) Global Poverty • The majority of the world poor, undernourished and illiterate are rural • 70% of the existing child labor is in agriculture • Urban large-scale migration stems from urban poverty • The urban-rural knowledge and capacity divide

5. 4) From Employment to sustainable livelihoods: From production driven to a people centered approach • Defining Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development (SARD- WSSD, 2000) • Beyond agriculture, towards empowering the poor • Decline of wage employment, expansion of self and non- farm employment and sustainable livelihoods: wide range of skills, for ALL of those living in rural areas

6. 5) From TVAET to Skills and Capacity Development for food security, rural development and sustainable livelihoods • Focusing on three pillars • The favorable policy environment:-> broadening EFA; linking MDG1and 2; PRSPs, etc • The institutional inter-ministerial collaboration -> MOE; MOA; MOL; MOH • The individuals : TVAET trainers capacity ; services to individuals (access/equity, quality/curriculum update etc) • Interministerial, intersectoral collaboration • The ERP partnership (http://www.fao.org/erp/) • The ERP tool kit (for formal and non formal)

7. 6) Diversified skills for sustainable agriculture and rural development • Crop production • Livestock • Small-scale fisheries • Forestry • Water control and storage • Rural infrastructure • Marketing information • Soft skills: communication, leadership, entrepreneurship, income-generating, micro finance and other business skills for self employment, gender, social, political and legal institutions, basic rights, citizenship etc.

8. Policy options to address the challenge ahead of food security and S.D. • Foster RD supportive macro- economic and sector policies • Promote positive discrimination measure to address the rural- urban and gender inequalities, and increase financing of TVEAT and Skills Development for RD as a public good for the poor • Include agricultural and rural development skills within all level and types of education and focus on knowledge utilization < acquisition