NN42, June 2009
A Safari Towards Aid Effectiveness?
Towards A Global Fund for Education For All
By David Archer, ActionAid, London
Email: David.Archer@actionaid.orgKeywords
EFA, Global Fund for EFA, FTI
Summary
This piece briefly assesses the state of the FTI and looks forward to plans to create a Global Fund for EFA.
Whoever chose the name Education For All Fast Track Initiative, popularly known as FTI, made a number of mistakes. Set up in 2002 the FTI convenes 30 bilateral and multilateral donors with a view to delivering on the promise made in Dakar in 2000 that any country with a credible plan to achieve EFA would not be allowed to fail for lack of resources.
There is no doubt that the Fast Track Initiative has played a positive role in some contexts, harmonizing donor efforts behind national education sector plans. This has reduced transaction costs for governments and in some cases improved the quality of planning. About 35 countries have now benefited from about $1.5 billion of pooled donor funding through the Catalytic Fund of the FTI. On paper FTI now has a strong country level process, premised on local education groups which involve the government, donors and civil society. In practice however, there are a number of problems. The country level process is rarely as democratic as the ideals suggest and civil society rarely has a significant voice. The FTI has encouraged education sector plans that are overly focused on primary schooling - and whilst this is re-balancing a little with more attention to secondary schooling, the FTI has probably actively undermined investment in other areas of EFA, most notably adult literacy (the most neglected goal) and early childhood education.
There have also been serious problems with the disbursement of FTI funds, mostly owing to the World Bank imposing fiduciary and procurement conditions which sometime contradict the spirit of FTI and the principles of aid effectiveness agreed in Paris and Accra. The ?fast-track? has in fact become a slow track and there is mounting anger at the World Bank?s role in slowing disbursement. The Bank response is to say they have no choice as their hands are tied by their Executive Board (on which the same donor countries sit) - which requires them to attach these conditions to all Trust Funds managed by them. However, little effort seems to have been made to find creative solutions.
An additional problem is that FTI commitments are still short term. Countries desperately need predictable aid for education, not last because the biggest costs in any education system are recurrent ones - for teacher salaries. More teachers need to be trained and employed - especially in rural areas and especially in response to rising class sizes as enrolments rise. But FTI funds rarely support teachers, as governments are reluctant to use short term funding to pay for a long term commitments. Where the money is used to pay for teachers it tends to be for a cadre of contract teachers or para teachers ? which is exacerbating problems with the quality of primary schooling and de-stabilising or fragmenting the teaching profession.
Most seriously the FTI lacks the political clout and scale of ambition to seriously address the resource gaps ? and so has failed to deliver on the Dakar promise. The very name FTI is elusive. It does not say what it is ? so whilst the term resonates with an education policy elite it is meaningless to most politicians and potential funders. Put simply, it is bad branding. This may in part explain why it has not extended to more than 35 countries ? and why 89% of children who are out of school around the world live in countries not supported by FTI. Indeed, although in some respects it is part of the design of FTI to focus resources on good performers this does leave major gaps, especially for high population countries with major education challenges and countries that are affected by conflict. Some efforts are being made to address this through a new ?Transition Fund? but reforms in the FTI are slow and those around the table lack the political weight to make big decisions.
A major evaluation of FTI is now underway ? taking place over more than a year. A preliminary report in April caused a major stir in the FTI meetings in Copenhagen as the tone was very critical and the donors around the table felt it was not constructive. However, the evaluation continues and will issue a final report later this year ? which could be a catalyst for more rapid change ? perhaps indeed leading to a fast track reform of the fast track initiative.
One critical factor in this is the call for a Global Fund for Education for All. This has emerged over the past year, particularly from the Democrats in the US. Hillary Clinton appears supportive, having co-sponsored a bill calling for an increase in US aid to education (to $2 to $3 billion a year ? up to a fourfold increase). President Obama also made references to a Global Fund for Education during his election campaign and some influential insiders are now working to make this happen. It is certainly a contested space, with some US NGOs calling for any new funds for education to go to USAID (so that the NGOs themselves can then gain access to large amounts of it through sub-contracting). However, there seems to be more support for the idea of putting a significant part of the new resources into a new Global Fund ? not least to indicate a new multilateralism and in order to leverage other funding from other G8 countries. The problem is that large sums cannot be put into the existing FTI ? as the FTI is seeking to fill a resource gap of only $1 to $2 billion ? and it defeats the idea of leveraging others if the US fills the whole gap. As such the creation of a Global Fund ? perhaps a radically re-branded FTI ? gathers momentum.
One of the first papers on a Global Fund for Education was produced in December 2008 by Gene Sperling, former Clinton adviser and chair of the GCE (Global Campaign for Education) US branch. The GCE (an alliance of teacher unions, international NGOs and national education campaigns from 65 countries) then consulted its membership globally and produced a new paper in April 2009, explicitly calling for a Global Fund for Education For All. It stresses that this should not be a parallel or competitor fund to FTI and calls for the following elements of FTI to be retained:
? A country-led process that harmonises and co-ordinates donor efforts behind a single government plan
? Civil society participation at country and global level governance
? Inclusivity of all low-income countries including fragile states
However, there are a number of differences (or radical reforms from FTI) that are also highlighted:
? A Global Education Fund would be an independent entity housed outside the World Bank
? The balance between bilateral funding and pooled funding would be 50-50. Currently FTI aims to mobilise 90% of funds bilaterally with just 10% going through pooled funds (Catalytic Fund, principally)
? It would address the full EFA agenda inclusive of early childhood education, adult literacy and all children, youth and adults including hardest-to-reach and discriminated-against communities
? It would have much higher level political representation than FTI
? It would have an annual pledging and review conference to ensure transparency and accountability
? It would offer greater predictability
There seems a strong case for the development of Global Fund for Education for All ? evolving out of FTI ? to re-energise global efforts. The next year will be critical ? not least as we are coming up to the final whistle if all children are to complete primary schooling by 2015. There is some hope of huge global attention to education in 2010 through the partnership of the Global Campaign for Education with FIFA, the World Football body. Billions of people should hear the call for attention to ?1 GOAL: Education for All? at the World Cup in South Africa. This may add up to sufficient public pressure to persuade politicians to invest more in education both in the South and North. The target for the GCE is always both, as aid is not seen as a solution in itself. It is fundamentally important for national governments across Africa, Asia and Latin America to increase their domestic spending on education (to at least 20% of national budgets / 6% of GDP). GCE is doing growing work on challenging the macro-economic conditions imposed by the IMF that hold down domestic spending (see Education on the Brink, GCE 2009). But for many countries aid will play an essential role to fill resource gaps in the coming years. It is true that some aid does more damage than good ? when it comes tied to conditions and imposed technical assistance or when the transaction costs for Ministries are excessive. Aid will only really be a constructive contribution if it comes in a harmonized and predictable way behind credible national plans. This is not as easy as it sounds. FTI was a first attempt. Now we need to see a second generation of global efforts to harmonise aid for education.
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