 
The European Commission, the German Presidency of the European Union and the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development convened the Second European Forum on Sustainable Rural Development.
The overall theme of the forum has been: Sustainable Growth and Poverty Reduction in Rural Africa: How can Europe be a more effective partner?
The forum has been forward-looking towards emerging issues of major concern for achieving impact in growth and poverty reduction, and had a practical focus on improving rural development policies and programmes. It brought attention to important economic, social and environmental changes underway in rural areas, and discussed the necessary responses, emphasising operational issues of improving aid delivery and coordination. Its principal (but not exclusive) geographical focus has been on sub-Saharan Africa, which is increasingly seen as the major focus for achieving the Millennium Development Goals.
The objectives of the forum were:
- To bring together European development agencies’ headquarters and field staff to share ideas, address common priorities and concerns, and promote networking.
- To provide an opportunity to get up to date with the latest issues in rural development.
- To contribute to broader efforts to strengthen the coordination of the development cooperation programmes of the EC and EU Member States in line with the Paris Principles, and
- To engage in high level policy advocacy to raise the profile of rural development issues, and to inform the wider policy debate on achieving the Millennium Development Goals in Africa.
Following the successful First Rural Forum held in Montpellier in 2002, this event brought together 400 participants, including policy makers and practitioners from the European Commission and EU Member States’ governments and development agencies, parliamentarians from EU and African countries, as well as expert speakers from developing countries governments, civil society organisations, research institutes and international organisations. Participation in the forum was upon invitation by the EU German Presidency and the European Commission.
The issue will be high on the international policy agenda next year with the release in September 2007 of the World Development Report 2008 on Agriculture and Development and the continuing G8 discussions on mobilising resources for African development.
The forum was funded by the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development using the EC/FAO Funding Facility, the European Commission, CTA, the Government of Germany and several other EU Member States.
The topics that were discussed (selected on the basis of the results of an online poll completed by over 160 participants):
- Rural livelihoods in Africa in the face of globalisation
- Environmental issues in rural development
- Economic and political reforms required to support rural development in Africa
- Regional integration in Africa and its implications for rural development
- Aid effectiveness, harmonisation and alignment
The Global Donor Platform took the initiative to structure the thematic content and contributions to Theme 5 (for details, please refer to the  Concept Note on Theme 5, prepared by the Platform Secretariat). Theme 5 has been addressed as a cross-cutting issue throughout all working groups. Three parallel panel discussions addressed the challenges within the aid effectiveness agenda such as (i) SWAps in Agriculture and Rural Development, (ii) aligning donor assistance to national strategies, and (iii) current trends for a division of labour among donors.
The stage has also been used for consultations on the proposed draft of a “Code of Conduct for Effective Aid Management in Agriculture and Rural Development”.
For the detailed programme and additional information
 www.ruralforum.info
 First Rural Forum
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