NN42, June 2009
A Safari Towards Aid Effectiveness?
The Changing Nature of Partnerships in the Education Sector in Ghana
By Leslie Casely-Hayford, Associates For Change, Accra
Email: comdev9@yahoo.comKeywords
Ghana; Partnership; Aid modality; Education
Summary
This piece examines aid partnerships in Ghana?s education sector and argues that very few donors have modified their approach to meet with the Government of Ghana?s desire to shift towards sector wide support and MDBS aid modalities and programming.
The Government of Ghana (GOG) in its last donor consultation (2008) which tabled the new ?Ghana Aid Policy? has encouraged donors across several sectors including education to shift away from the project mode of financing as new modalities for delivery are put in place through sector wide approaches and mutli-donor budgetary support mechanisms (MDBS). Over the last five years Ghana has embarked on a sector wide approach in the education sector which has encouraged but not always convinced donors involved in education that there is a need to change their approach to delivering aid - away from projects towards sector support. Donor financial support for the education sector between 1998 and 2006 has fluctuated between 7.8% (in 1998) to 6.54% (in 2006) with the highest level of support reaching 8.6% in 1999 for the donor share of total education spending. Unfortunately not all donors have been convinced that sector support and multi-donor sector support is the most efficient way to deliver programming, achieve results and ensure developmental change within the sector.
Interviews with over 20 donors in the Aid Partnership strand under the Research Consortium on Education Outcomes and Poverty (RECOUP) suggest that not all donors have modified their approach to meet with the Government of Ghana?s desire to shift towards sector wide support and MDBS aid modalities and programming. Some cosmetic changes have taken place where donors are able to more consciously negotiate and capture their financing through the sector Ministries? budget. Research under RECOUP suggests that eleven donors out of 13 donors to the education sector continue to use project approaches to aid delivery. Estimates suggest that up to 400 million USD has been committed to the education sector through the project aid approach compared to the 60 million USD through the sector budget support (SBS) mechanism between 2008 and 2010 (McCarthy, 2008). Only two out of Ghana?s 13 education focused donors are exclusively using the new aid modalities (SBS and MDBS) with some donors continuing to identify the general areas within sub sector support where funds should be spent (e.g. basic education or post basic). This is the case even if more than ten donors subscribe in some way to MDBS.
Ghana?s future course for educational development is currently riddled with the question of where to invest? should the GOG continue focusing its major investments on improving quality at the primary level to ensure the attainment of basic literacy and numeracy outcomes which has implications for all levels?or should major investment be moved towards the heightening interest in post basic education to ensure that unemployed youth who have completed primary/basic education are provided with viable options towards skills development and higher education in order for Ghana to attain middle income status by 2015? Experience and research suggests that the technical support and policy dialogue which donors have championed during the 80s and 90s have kept Ghana?s education sector on a course towards achieving universal access and quality education attainment; with less technical support and a lowering of policy dialogue by donors resulting from a focus on government-led sector wide support, the desire for harmonized financial approaches, including with donors who are still caught in the project mode of delivery, the tensions of policy alignment may be rather difficult to address.
Further information
Research Consortium on Educational Outcomes and Poverty (RECOUP) .
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