A New Compact for Global Education

Guiding Principles for the Next Step in Global Education Financing[1]

Impressive progress has been made in education in recent years, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Thanks in large part to debt relief and the prioritization of education by governments in developing countries, 40 million more children were enrolled in primary school between 1999 and 2006. Increased development assistance played an important role in these successes. In countries like Tanzania, Ghana, Mozambique and Zambia, for example, substantial increases in development assistance helped support large expansions in enrollment.

Much of the increases in development assistance for education began after 2000, when the world set out the Education for All (EFA) Goals and the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) to achieve universal primary education (UPE) by 2015. At the 2000 World Education Forum in Dakar, donors pledged that "No country seriously committed to education for all will be thwarted in their achievement of this goal by lack of resources." Out of this compact grew the Fast Track Initiative in 2002, a partnership designed to mobilize increased bilateral and multilateral resources for countries that developed national education plans that had been technically vetted and endorsed by a panel of experts.

Eight years after EFA goals and MDGs were announced and six years after the launch of the FTI, development assistance for education has increased but not at the pace necessary to achieve the goals set forth. Recent numbers reported by the OECD-DAC indicate a decline in donor funding for basic education by 22% between 2006 and 2007, from $5.5 billion to 4.3 billion. This is less than 40% of the $11 billion needed annually for basic education.[2] Moreover, most development assistance for basic education comes from a small number of donors; the UK, the Netherlands and IDA account for an estimated 60% of all aid to basic education in low-income countries.

Bold new investments in education are needed if the world is to provide the 75 million children still out of school with access to a quality education and protect the progress already made in the sector. President Barack Obama injected new momentum into the education for all movement with his promise to capitalize a "Global Education Fund" with a $2 billion commitment from the United States. This commitment has raised expectations that the U.S. will join other donors in scaling up effective aid for basic education in the world's poorest countries, and has started a conversation among policy makers and civil society about a potential Global Fund for Education as the next step in the evolution of the FTI. Despite major progress in coordinating donor support for technically vetted national education plans, the FTI has faced chronic funding shortfalls and a limited mandate since its inception. While the FTI has taken on many of the reforms necessary to expand its reach and capacity, strengthening and reforming the FTI into an independent Global Fund for Education with an expanded multilateral fund and enhanced monitoring, predictability and accountability of bilateral support could move the world closer towards a global education compact that is equipped to achieve UPE by 2015.

Any new global education initiative should build off the success of the FTI framework while also addressing its shortcomings. At its core, it should maintain the structure that FTI was built on: developing countries develop costed, technically-vetted national education plans and mobilize domestic resources and donors collaborate to fill the remaining gaps. This pioneering approach to development assistance has become a model in country ownership and donor coordination and should be maintained in any new education mechanism, along with the following features:  

• Multiple disbursement channels: A new education funding mechanism should maintain the "virtual fund" foundation that FTI was built on by continuing to serve as an umbrella mechanism that coordinates funding across various channels. This includes continuing to coordinate bilateral contributions towards national education plans, with a stronger focus on monitoring these commitments to promote accountability by donors. At the same time, an enhanced pooled mechanism should be developed (to succeed the Catalytic Fund) with regular replenishments, longer funding cycles and the ability to disburse funds quickly.


• Independent Secretariat: Any new education mechanism must be formally and legally independent of all other international institutions to ensure independent decision making, accountability, efficiency and effectiveness as well as broad ownership by all education stakeholders. This independence would not preclude the possibility of a fiduciary role for the World Bank, such as it currently fulfills as trustee of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.


• Increased, long-term and predictable financing: For a new initiative to be successful, it must be able to leverage increased financing to fill the vast funding gaps in universal primary education. This will require support from key FTI donors as well as the inclusion of traditional education funders who operate outside of the current FTI framework, such as the U.S. To ensure that the aid leveraged is delivered in an effective manner, new emphasis should be placed on the long-term and predictable nature of funding. Replenishments should happen every 5-10 years (or equivalent to the length of a country's national education plan) to ensure predictability and enable education and finance ministers to cover recurrent costs like teachers.


• More ambitious scope: As the next step in the evolution of the FTI framework, a new global education initiative should be mandated with a more ambitious scope than the current FTI, which is focused on achieving UPE in high-performing countries. An expanded framework should include funding for education programs in fragile states (potentially through an interim status before FTI endorsement), new avenues for countries to receive funding for secondary education and other basic education goals, and an enhanced focus on results and learning outcomes. These changes are not only necessary to achieve UPE (nearly half of the world's out of school children are in fragile states, for example), but also to ensure that progress already made is sustainable by allowing countries to meet new demands for secondary school and ensuring that schools are equipping children with the tools they need to become productive members of their societies.


• Participatory governance: Any new education initiative should include representation from all key stakeholders, including donor governments, recipient governments, civil society organizations and key multilateral stakeholders. At the global level, these groups should have representation and proportionate decision-making power. At the national level, these groups should be involved in designing the national education plan and determining the true financing gap. Local civil society organizations should also be enlisted to ensure accountability and disbursement of funds, especially in fragile states and other situations where the government's capacity to do so is limited.

Sub-Saharan Africa and other developing regions have made substantial progress towards universal primary education with commendable support from a small number of donors. However, the global compact on education needs to be reinvigorated if the world is to meet the 2015 deadline on universal primary education and the broader Education for All goals. Education stakeholders should capitalize on the momentum garnered by President Obama's commitment by ensuring that any new contribution made by the U.S. can be leveraged globally and exploring ways to strengthen and reform the FTI into a global education compact that is better equipped to provide every child with access to quality education by 2015.

[1] The content of this document was developed in partnership with the Global Campaign for Education, a coalition which brings together major nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), religious organizations and teachers' unions in more than 120 countries to promote access to education as a basic human right and raise public awareness to create the political will for governments and other leaders in the international community to fulfill their promises to provide a free, public basic education for all children. 

[2] An estimated $9.8 billion is needed annually for universal primary education. Total DAC funding for UPE was $1.9 billion in 2007.