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Africa: Global Fund for Education
Africa Focus Bulletin
Sep 21, 2009 (090921)(Reposted from sources cited below)
Editor's Note
"A Global Fund for Education holds the key to delivering on the
world's commitment to education for all by 2015. Evolving current
mechanisms into a more independent, inclusive, and accountable
institution can catalyze the resources and performance needed to
achieve universal education. [Because of the strong effects of
education on other development goals] this would make a major
contribution to reducing global poverty, empowering women, and
promoting economic growth in low-income countries around the world." -
Center for Universal Education
A year ago, at the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative,
Presidential candidate Barack Obama pledged to establish a
$2 billion Global Fund for Education so that every child around the world
can go to school. Noting that President Obama will again address the
Clinton Global Initiative this week, before appearances at the United
Nations and at the G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh, David Gartner of the
Center for Universal Education (http://www.brookings.edu/universal-education.aspx)
urges the president to reaffirm his commitment and fill in the details.
Whether or not President Obama manages to add global education to his
top priorities while also addressing other pressing demands such as
the global economy, climate change, global health, and war in
Afghanistan, is uncertain. But the call for a new global fund for
education, on the model of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB, and
Malaria, is increasingly seen in policy circles as the only plausible
way to avoid letting education promises fall victim to the economic
downturn.
Few doubt the value of expanding education. The World Bank, a former
proponent of school fees that helped devastate African education in
the 1980s and 1990s, has joined in a program called "The School Fee
Abolition Initiative," Obama's top economic adviser, Lawrence
Summers, has noted that "educating girls yields a higher rate of
return than any other investment available in the developing world,"
But as on global health and climate change, a wide consensus on need
is by no means a guarantee that the United States and other rich
countries will make the necessary commitments.
This AfricaFocus Bulletin includes a recent policy brief from the
Center for Universal Education, and excerpts from a World Bank /
UNICEF book-length report on "Abolishing School Fees in
Africa:
Lessons from Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, and Mozambique."
For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on education-related issues, see
http://www.africafocus.org/educexp.php
For updates on issues related to education policy in Africa, see the
website of the Association for the Development of Education in Africa
(http://www.adeanet.org). The UN Girls' Education Initiative
(http://www.ungei.org) also has news updates, as well as background
information at the country level. And UNESCO publishes an annual
Education for All Global Monitoring Report
(http://www.unesco.org/en/efareport), as well as news, background
reports, and country profiles..
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Book Announcement
Tom Shachtman's Airlift to America, released this month
(http://www.africafocus.org/books/isbn.php?0312570759)
recounts the
early 1960s African American Student Foundation project to bring some
800 students from East Africa to attend university.
The book,
subtitled "How Barack Obama, Sr. , John F. Kennedy, Tom Mboya, and 800
East African Students Changed Their World and Ours,"
argues
that the Kennedy family's decision to support the airlift when it was
first rejected by the Eisenhower administration was quite likely one
of the factors leading to higher African American turnout for Kennedy
in the 1960 election. The book is based on the archives of the
Foundation, preserved by its director Cora Weiss (see also the short
essay "Peter and Cora Weiss: "The Atmosphere of African Liberation":
at http://www.noeasyvictories.org/select/13_weiss.php).
++++++++++++++++++++++end editor'snote+++++++++++++++++++++++
A Global Fund for Education: Achieving Education for All
David Gartner, Co-Director, Center for Universal Education
The Brookings Institution
Brookings Policy Brief Series | # 169 | August 2009
http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2009/08_education_gartner.aspx
In order to realize the world's commitment to ensuring education for
all by 2015, important innovations and reforms will be needed in the
governance and financing of global education. In 2008, Presidential
Candidate Barack Obama committed to making sure that every child has
the chance to learn by creating a Global Fund for Education. Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton has recently called for a new architecture of
global cooperation that requires institutions to "combine the
efficiency and capacity for action with inclusiveness." A new Global
Fund for Education should be an independent and inclusive
multi-stakeholder institution that builds upon existing institutions
and supports country-driven solutions.
It must be capable of mobilizing the approximately $7 billion annually
still needed to achieve education for all, while holding all
stakeholders accountable for achieving results with these resources.
None of these objectives will be achieved without a major rethinking
of the global education architecture and an evolution of current
mechanisms for financing education. More than 75 million children
remain out of primary school, and only 53 of the
171
countries with available data have achieved gender parity in primary
and secondary education. Achieving these two Millennium Development
Goals, and the broader Education for All Goals set out by 164
countries, will require more capable international institutions. A
Global Fund for Education that links funding to performance, that
ensures a greater share of resources reach schools and that
coordinates the efforts of diverse stakeholders is essential to
putting these goals within reach.
In order to realize President Obama's vision for creating a Global
Fund for Education, significant leadership by the United States on
global education will be needed in the coming year. A clear commitment
by the United States to leverage the contributions of other nations
and work together to support country-driven strategies through a
Global Fund for Education could catalyze unprecedented international
energy around achieving education for all.
Learning from Existing and Innovative Mechanisms
The Global Fund for Education should reflect an evolution of the
successful elements of existing multilateral mechanisms.
Seven
years ago, the Fast Track Initiative (FTI) was launched as the primary
financing vehicle for achieving education for all.
Working
with key donors and international institutions, the FTI was supposed
to mobilize the resources needed to close the massive
education-financing gap. Housed within the World Bank, the FTI has not
yet been able to build a strong public brand, engage the support of a
number of leading donors or mobilize adequate resources from major
donor countries.
The FTI has not been capable of generating resources on a scale
consistent with its founding vision of achieving universal education
for all. Although the FTI initially focused on expanding bilateral
in education, in 2003 it created a multilateral Catalytic
Fund to mobilize additional resources with an early focus on countries
without major bilateral donors.
In 2006, the FTI's multilateral Catalytic Fund represented approximately
2% of aid commitments to basic education.
Although the number of countries contributing to the Catalytic Fund has
> increased in recent years, many of the biggest donors are still not
> participating, and just three countries accounted for over 70% of
> total pledges in 2008. As a result, the FTI faces a shortfall of
> $1.2 billion for the coming year, which is more than all the money it
> has received from donors in the last six years. Although many
> countries endorsed by the FTI have experienced increases in bilateral
> basic education funding, their share of overall assistance focused on
> basic education has not increased, a fact that makes it hard to rule
> out the possibility that overall aid trends were largely responsible
> for that growth.
>
> The FTI has recently undertaken a set of internal governance reforms
> designed to improve its performance, but these changes alone are
> unlikely to overcome some of the structural challenges it still faces.
> Without independent capacity for action, more inclusive governance,
> greater attention to conflict-affected countries and stronger
> accountability for results the FTI will not be able to mobilize
> sufficient resources or deliver the results that it was set up to
> achieve. At the same time, the FTI's model of requiring and supporting
> the development of comprehensive national education strategies and
> seeking to align donor funding around these strategies should be
> incorporated in any evolution to a Global Fund for Education.
> Similarly, the FTI's ambition of aligning bilateral flows along with
> multilateral funding remains an important objective to ensure that all
> types of donor funding are being fully leveraged.
>
> A Global Fund for Education should also draw on the successful
> experience of other innovative global development financing
> mechanisms. Among the most successful of these new institutions is the
> Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria (GFATM).
> Since its inception, the GFATM has generated commitments of over $20
> billion and is now the leading source of external financing for
> tuberculosis and malaria. One of the keys to the GFATM's success in
> resource mobilization has been the strong engagement of both civil
> society and developing countries as full partners with donors in its
> governance. Civil society representatives and developing countries
> have equal standing in decision-making at the global level within the
> GFATM. As a result, civil society stakeholders have been at the center
> of the largely successful drive for resource mobilization for the Fund
> and partner countries are more invested in its success.
>
> Toward a Global Fund for Education
>
> The core mission of the Global Fund for Education should be to
> mobilize the financing needed to achieve universal quality education.
> Linking successful early learning with meaningful opportunities for
> secondary education, the Global Fund for Education should maintain a
> focus on achieving universal quality basic education for all while
> also supporting early childhood learning and secondary schooling as
> part of a comprehensive approach to education. The GFE should be
> guided by a set of core principles, focused on key objectives, and
> reflect an evolution of existing mechanisms:
>
> 1. Independent Capacity for Action
>
> Independence from any other international institution will be
> essential to establish the public profile necessary to succeed in this
> resource mobilization challenge. The independence of the Global Fund
> to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has been a key to its success,
> while the lack of independence of the FTI has been a primary obstacle
> to its ability to mobilize sufficient resources.
> An independent Global Fund for Education should still leverage the
> expertise and commitment of other international institutions, such as
> UNESCO, UNICEF and the World Bank. Technical experts from these
> institutions can play an important role in supporting countries both
> in the development of national strategies and in the effective
> implementation of these strategies.
>
> 2. Inclusive Governance
>
> Inclusive governance will be critical to building a multi-stakeholder
> constituency that is committed to mobilizing resources. Developing
> countries, civil society and donor countries should be equal partners
> in a system in which there is equal representation and the support of
> each constituency is necessary for major decisions. Such a requirement
> in the governance structure of the GFE will not only strengthen the
> internal decision-making process by subjecting it to the scrutiny of
> diverse perspectives but will also provide external legitimacy and
> increase the effectiveness of its implementation efforts. Without such
> inclusiveness, the Global Fund for Education will not be able to
> succeed in either mobilizing donors to make education a top priority
> nor in ensuring that these resources are being well-spent in partner
> countries.
>
> 3. Country-Driven Solutions
>
> Developing countries should set the agenda for the best approach for
> themselves through the development of comprehensive national education
> strategies. The Global Fund for Education should build on the FTI's
> ambition of aligning donor investments around comprehensive national
> education plans that reflect country-driven solutions. In order to
> ensure that strategies are truly national not simply government plans
> the Global Fund for Education should mandate that civil society and
> other non-governmental stakeholders are full partners in the
> development of these strategies at the national level. Just as
> inclusive participation at the global level supports effective
> resource mobilization, ensuring full participation at the
> national-level supports effective implementation by diverse
> stakeholders.
>
> 4. Accountability for Results
>
> Accountability must be central to the design of the Global Fund for
> Education. Systems to ensure financial accountability and that money
> actually reaches the school level and helps students learn are
> essential to the effectiveness of the Fund.
> Performance-based
> disbursement, which connects continued funding with demonstrated
> results, is the best way to create incentives for recipient countries
> to deliver on promised results. In addition, key indicators including
> gains in enrollment, gender equity and student learning outcomes
> should be included among performance measures.
> Utilizing improved measures for assessing student learning will be
> critical to improving completion rates and maximizing the development
> gains from education. In order to ensure some reasonable
> predictability of financing, countries that show strong performance
> should be eligible for extensions of funding over significant periods.
>
> 5. Focus on Low-Income and Conflict-Affected States
>
> Given the inevitable limits on the resources of the Global Fund for
> Education, it is important to establish an allocation principle for
> distributing funding. First, the eligibility for funding should be
> limited to low-income countries, or those countries that are eligible
> for funding under the World Bank's IDA window.
> Second,
> there should be special attention to the challenges of states
> currently experiencing or emerging from conflict and mechanisms to
> ensure support for education in these states. Third, the GFE should
> prioritize those countries categorized as least-developed and that
> have the most limited national resources. Finally, funding should
> generally be linked to the level of effort by national governments in
> supporting education.
>
> 6. Leverage and Align Donor Resources
>
> The Global Fund for Education holds enormous promise for mobilizing
> funding from a diverse array of donors. Just as the Global Fund to
> Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria has leveraged a two-to-one match
> of U.S. resources from the rest of the world, the Global Fund for
> Education could similarly leverage global resources for education. In
> order to ensure adequate incentives for countries to contribute their
> fair share, donor board seats should be allocated and adjusted with
> reference to donor contributions. In addition, there should be a
> regularized replenishment process built into the initial design that
> is linked to the overall resource needs for universal education and
> that encourages long-term commitments by donors. The GFE should also
> be committed to providing multiple channels for donor assistance, both
> bilateral and multilateral, as long as these funds are truly aligned
> with national strategies.
> While there is a clear need to expand multilateral financing for
> education far beyond what has been possible to date, it is also
> important that ongoing bilateral commitments are much better
> integrated with the objectives of national education strategies.
>
> A Global Fund for Education holds the key to delivering on the world's
> commitment to education for all by 2015. Evolving current mechanisms
> into a more independent, inclusive, and accountable institution can
> catalyze the resources and performance needed to achieve universal
> education. Since education is one of the most leveraged of all
> development investments, establishing a Global Fund for Education
> would make a major contribution to reducing global poverty, empowering
> women, and promoting economic growth in low-income countries around
> the world.
>
> **************************************************************
>
>
> Abolishing School Fees in Africa
>
> Lessons from Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, and Mozambique
>
> The World Bank in collaboration with the United Nations Children's
> Fund (UNICEF), 2009
>
> 250 page book. Available as pdf download at
> http://www.unicef.org/publications/index_49325.html
>
>
> Foreword
>
> In the mid-1990s, often with the support of development agencies and
> non-governmental organizations (NGOs), governments began to champion
> the elimination of user fees in primary education.
> Among
> the first countries to move in this direction were Malawi and Uganda.
> It was at this point that the second hard lesson became apparent. If
> poor children were the most vulnerable to the imposition of fees and
> the existence of other economic barriers, they could also, ironically,
> be the most vulnerable to unplanned or under-planned attempts to
> remove these barriers. Early efforts to remove fees showed the
> enormous power of such measures to increase enrollments, but they also
> showed how quickly the promise of these initiatives could be lost.
> Quality was compromised by dramatic increases in class size and a loss
> of school-level funding, far too frequently leaving the children of
> the poor no better off than before.
>
> These experiences showed that as important as school fee elimination
> could be to facilitate the right to education and to universalize
> primary education, it must be carefully planned and widely negotiated
> if it is to make a positive and sustainable impact on school access
> and learning outcomes. In short, school fee abolition and similar
> measures to remove the economic barriers to schooling, such as
> conditional cash transfers, are unlikely to succeed unless they are
> part of a sustainable national education plan to ensure that the
> children they are targeting complete a good quality primary education.
> This requires careful planning and implementation as well as major
> public investments. Most development agencies and NGOs agree with
> countries that the provision of additional teachers and materials will
> help to ensure that any surge in school enrollment does not weaken the
> quality of education or further disadvantage vulnerable populations.
> Also,
> long-term predictable financing a key focus of the Education for All
> Fast Track Initiative is regarded by all development partners as
> necessary to enable schools to replace lost income from abolished
> fees.
>
> ...
>
> **********************************************************
>
>
> Chapter 1
>
> The School Fee Abolition Initiative (SFAI) seeks to accelerate
> progress toward quality education for all children by supporting
> policies that remove cost barriers, preventing parents from enrolling
> and maintaining their children at school. As explained further in the
> preface to this book, SFAI was launched by the United Nations
> Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Bank in 2005 as an instrument
> to ensure that existing Education for All
> (EFA)
> commitments were met. ...
>
> In many countries, recent efforts to reduce or abolish school fees
> are, in fact, second attempts. The first efforts were initiated many
> decades earlier but were abandoned or reversed under pressure of
> economic crises. In Ghana, for instance, primary school fees were
> first abolished in 1961; while in Kenya and Tanzania, fee abolition
> policies were introduced in 1974. These policies had a significant
> impact on enrollment and resulted in rapid gains toward the goal of
> universal primary education (UPE). Over time, however, the policies
> were largely abandoned, and many of the early gains reversed.
>
> Many countries have reintroduced fee abolition policies during the
> past decade as part of the renewed international effort to achieve UPE
> by 2015. Many more countries may be expected to follow suit in the
> years to come. Since these countries confront many similar challenges
> in preparing for and implementing fee abolition, it is important to
> understand the lessons of past experience. To this end, the SFAI
> workshop organized in Nairobi April 5 7, 2006, aimed to harness the
> experience of six African countries (Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi,
> Mozambique, and Tanzania) that have introduced school fee abolition
> policies in recent years.
> ,,,
>
> The increase in total primary school enrollment in the five case study
> countries in the year following fee abolition was 12 percent in
> Mozambique, 14 percent in Ghana, 18 percent in Kenya, 23 percent in
> Ethiopia, and 51 percent in Malawi. The increase in grade 1 enrollment
> far exceeded the total increase for all grades.
> Similar
> increases in enrollment in the year following fee abolition have
> occurred in many other countries; for example, Cameroon, 26 percent in
> total primary enrollment (59 percent in grade 1); Lesotho, 11 percent
> in total enrollment (75 percent in grade 1); Tanzania, 23 percent in
> total enrollment (43 percent in grade 1); and Uganda, 68 percent in
> total enrollment. This clearly demonstrates the importance of fee
> abolition and cost considerations in determining whether parents will
> be able to enroll and maintain their children at school. However, past
> experience also shows that such gains have been difficult to maintain
> through economic crises.
>
> ...
>
> Many of the African countries that made strong progress toward
> universal primary education during the 1960s and 1970s did so after
> they abolished school fees, including three of the six countries
> participating at the 2006 Nairobi SFAI Workshop (Ghana, Kenya, and
> Tanzania). However, in all three cases the gains from the earlier fee
> abolition policy were undermined by lack of financial sustainability.
>
> ...
>
> All five case studies raise questions about the impact of fee
> abolition on the quality of education, both because the revenues from
> fees typically provided for learning materials and because resources
> must be shared among more pupils to cater to the enrollment surge.
> This results in crowded classrooms and increased pupil-teacher ratios
> (PTRs). Low quality was a serious concern before fee abolition and,
> without a funded strategy to address quality issues, the situation has
> often been more serious after the removal of fees.15 While the case
> studies differ in many aspects, the question of quality features in
> all of them.
>
> *************************************************************
>
> AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
> providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with a
> particular focus on U.S. and international policies.
> AfricaFocus
> Bulletin is edited by William Minter.
>
> AfricaFocus Bulletin can be reached at africafocus@igc.org.
> Please
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