From 12 to 15 September 2022, the fifth European Rural Parliament took place in Kielce, Poland. Over four days, more than 400 rural stakeholders gathered to share experiences, challenges, and opportunities in Europe’s rural areas. SHERPA was kindly invited by the organisers to participate to the European Rural Parliament and organise a specific workshop portraying some it our results.
Throughout the ERP, representatives of SHERPA participated to a variety of interesting presentations and speeches from high-level speakers such as Janusz Wojciechowski, the European Commissioner for Agriculture. Inspirational views, thoughts, examples, and stories from Europe’s rural areas were at the core of their speeches. For instance, few of the topics raised have been the future of Europe, voices from the diverse European rural realities, the Rural Pact and rural proofing.
Furthermore, SHERPA representatives attended study visits portraying the work of Local Action Groups in the region, as well as a variety of rural workshops on topics such as rural proofing and rural agenda’s.
On the third day of the ERP, SHERPA organised a workshop titled ‘Rural trends, scenarios and solutions- views from 20 multi-actor platforms’, moderated by representatives of European Rural Development Network (ERDN). Within the first phase of SHERPA, 20 Multi-Actor Platforms (MAPs) gathering representatives from science, society and policy explored rural trends and developed a vision for their territories. This workshop built on these results to explore solutions to achieve desirable future for rural areas by asking participants to share alternative solutions not yet considered and good practices that could help achieve the desirable future for rural areas.
On 15 September 2022, the European Rural Parliament Declaration was signed; a document acknowledging the urgent challenges that Europe’s rural areas are facing. The Declaration outlines the strong need for action and it calls upon citizens and policymakers to assist in the creation of sustainable rural communities, especially when it comes to resilience in crises, as well as security and solidarity.