Gender and Education for All THE LEAP TO EQUALITY

Chapter 6 - Meeting our international commitments

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Aid flows

Total aid flows to developing countries Aid flows to developing countries fell during the 1990s, although there has been an upward trend since 1997 (Table 6.1). The 2001 Official Development Assistance (ODA) disbursements represent a 5.7% increase in real terms (constant prices) compared with the year 2000. Nevertheless, the total flows of US$52.4 billion in 2001 are still below the levels attained ten years earlier when total ODA was US$60.6 billion. Bilateral agencies provided the majority of ODA during the decade – 69% of the total in 2001. The increase between 2000 and 2001 is, however, almost solely explained by a rise in multilateral aid. The World Bank (IDA) and the European Commission (EC) are still the main sources of multilateral assistance and both increased their flows in 2001. Of the total ODA disbursements over the two biennia (1998–99 and 2000–01) almost one quarter went to sub-Saharan Africa, one-sixth to East Asia and the Pacific, and one-tenth to South and West Asia1. There was some decline in the disbursements for East Asia and the Pacific and small increases in those for sub-Saharan Africa, and South and West Asia (Figure 6.1). 1.Note that a high proportion (more than 20%) of total disbursements cannot be allocated to any one of the EFA regions.

Bilateral aid to education Bilateral aid flows to education declined during the 1990s. As with total ODA, the trend for bilateral aid flows to education was downwards during the 1990s, from near US$5 billion at the beginning of the decade to slightly less than US$4 billion in 2001 (Figure 6.2). Although there was some improvement in 2001, as compared with the previous year, taking the two years together, bilateral aid to education fell by 16% between 1998–99 and 2000–01 (Table 6.2)2. Table 6.2 indicates considerable inter-country differences. Six countries accounted for more than three-quarters of the bilateral aid commitments to education in 2000–01 (France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States). A majority of the countries (thirteen) increased their aid to education over the two biennia, including two of the six largest providers – the Netherlands and the United States. Three countries – Denmark, Portugal and Spain – increased their education aid commitments very substantially, in percentage terms, with changes of 238%, 75% and 61% respectively. In contrast, nine countries reduced their commitments to education, including France, Germany and Japan, among the biggest providers. Austria had the largest negative change (–44%) followed by France (–40%) and Japan (–24%). Aid to education fell from 10% to 8% of total aid flows over the two biennia (Table 6.2). Some of the smaller countries, including Ireland, Luxembourg and New Zealand, allocate between one-fifth and one-third of their aid to education – as does France (23%). The United States, in contrast, allocates only about one-third of the average for all DAC countries. Table 6.3 shows changes in the flows of aid to education and to basic education for the DAC member countries in 1998–99 and 2000–013. As noted above, DAC countries as a whole reduced their aid to education from US$4,386 million to US$3,679 million, and as a percentage of total aid from 10% to 8%. In contrast, aid to basic education increased by more than 60% (from US$486 million to US$800 million). As a proportion of the total, it almost doubled, reaching 24% in 2000–01. Although the period concerned is too short to establish a trend, some patterns emerge from Table 6.3. Thus, independently of size of economy or of other political considerations, one group of countries had an unambiguously positive record. It can be seen from the last four columns of the table that in Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Luxembourg, Portugal and the United States, the absolute magnitude of aid to education and to basic education increased. Furthermore, education received greater priority in the overall aid programme in these countries and basic education was given greater prominence in educational support. Elsewhere, experience was more mixed. In some Group III countries in the table (including France and Japan) education aid as whole fell, whereas aid to basic education increased. In other countries, aid to basic education fell, both absolutely and as a proportion of education aid. These are the countries shown in Groups IV and V, and include Austria, Germany, Switzerland and three Nordic countries. However, the groupings and patterns presented in Table 6.3 should be interpreted with some care, in part because they offer only a short-term indication of the levels and trends of aid flows for education. In addition, a more detailed examination of the composition of bilateral aid to education, set in the context of changing aid policies and modalities, allows a more nuanced interpretation of patterns and trends to emerge. Composition of bilateral education aid Table 6.4 shows that support for basic education from all DAC countries increased from 13% to 24% of bilateral education aid. Nevertheless, these data need to be seen in the context of more than one-fifth of aid to education being classified as ‘unspecified’. Even though this category decreased over the period, it still comprised more than half of total education aid in five countries. Strictly, the ‘unspecified’ category refers to education aid which cannot be classified by sub-sector4. The category ‘unspecified’ is best understood by examining OECD-DAC’s Creditor Reporting System (CRS, see Box 6.1). Its composition is shown in Figure 6.3 for five donor countries. In most of these cases the largest part is accounted for by education policies, administration and management. This is often the category to which general sector support is assigned, notwithstanding that a large part of such support may in fact be targeted at basic education. Furthermore, more careful reporting of sub-sectoral detail over time appears to be happening. Accordingly, the apparent increased level of support to basic education over the period shown in Table 6.4 may partly arise from a re-classification of aid flows from the ‘unspecified’ category. Replies to a survey of eight bilateral agencies5, conducted for this Report, suggested that this was the main explanation for the compensating movement of the shares of ‘unspecified’ and ‘basic’ between 1998–99 and 2000–01 for the United Kingdom and – in the opposite direction – for Sweden. Aid to education is also provided through other sectors, as Figure 6.4 shows. These flows are insignificant in some countries (such as the United States), but they constitute highly significant amounts in others (approximately 50% for Australia and Norway). These, of course, may be atypical rather than regular. For example, in the case of Norway, the figure was 30% in 1998–99. In addition, these allocations may reflect a limited number of activities. Thus 90% of the 2000–01 figure for Norway is explained by two medical training projects in the United Republic of Tanzania. This considerable proportion of education aid allocated through other sector programmes may counterbalance the somewhat negative characteristics for Norway suggested by Table 6.3. It is, then, necessary to take account of all DAC data sources in order to establish a full picture of aid to education and to explain changes in aid provision by individual member countries. This is particularly relevant for countries that have adopted the sector-wide approach or more general support to the budgets of governments as their predominant aid modality, and for those that provide large amounts of aid for education under other sectoral programmes. Reporting on aid to education The previous sections have suggested that difficulties remain in obtaining a totally accurate picture of aid to education, and to basic education more specifically, but steady improvements in reporting to the OECD-DAC are being made, as Box 6.1 demonstrates. In the survey conducted for this report, all bilateral agencies acknowledged the value of the DAC education statistics as an official source on aid flows and as a basis for comparison across countries. However, some of them also indicated that the DAC figures do not provide the full picture of their support for education and that in some cases there are differences between what they record for the DAC and what they report nationally. This partly relates to difficulties in applying the DAC recording system, particularly in the context of moving from specific projects to more general sectoral and budget support, and partly to other technical issues that vary in importance from country to country (see Box 6.2). What remains of immediate interest is whether the data issues raised by the agencies may partly explain the patterns set out in Table 6.3, the extent to which support for basic education and the ‘unspecified’ sub-sectors are interrelated, and whether support provided through channels other than through the education sector can be considered as significant. Aid trends, policies and commitments In recent policy statements, the bilateral agencies participating in the survey for this report indicated strong support for education, stressing its role in poverty reduction, in sustainable development, and in the empowerment of women and girls. Table 6.5 summarizes the agencies’ returns. More than a fifth of aid to education is classed as ‘unspecified’. Education is excepted to benefit from the millennium Challenge Account. These indications of a renewed commitment to basic education have been accompanied by some announcements of new funding commitments. At the G8 summit in Kananaskis, Canada, in March 2002, both Japan and Canada announced additional funding for basic education. Japan indicated pledges of more than US$2 billion of ODA for the education sector over the next five years to support low-income countries faced with difficulties in achieving the EFA goals, and that it would strengthen its Basic Education for Growth Initiative (BEGIN) which focuses on access, quality and management. Canada declared that it would increase its investment in basic education in sub-Saharan Africa to CDN$100 million by 2005 and would maintain at least that level of investment annually thereafter. This was in addition to the CDN$555 million that Canada committed to invest in basic education in its Social Development Priorities Framework published soon after the World Education Forum in Dakar. At the United Nations Conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey, Mexico, in March 2002, France announced an increase of its ODA to reach 0.5% of its GNP over the next five years, and 0.7% over ten years. This is expected to lead to increased support for education and particularly for basic education. The United States announced that it would increase its core assistance to developing countries by 50% over the next three years, resulting in a US$5 billion annual increase over current levels by 2006 (U.S. Government, 2002). The new fund, which will supplement the current assistance, would be placed in a Millennium Challenge Account and be available to countries that have demonstrated commitment to sound development policies. So far, Congress has approved US$800 million for 2004 (USAID, 2003a). Education is expected to benefit from this account. In addition, US support for basic education is expected to increase in the order of 50% during 2001–03 (U.S. Government, 2002). More recently, the Netherlands announced its intention to spend €2.5 billion (approximately US$2.92 billion) on education in developing countries in the next five years, of which 76% will go to basic education (Netherlands, 2003a). The Fast-Track Initiative (FTI), discussed later in this chapter, has also attracted funds from nine bilateral agencies. This, in association with IDA acceleration funds, is in the order of US$200 million for the period 2003–05. Regional distribution of bilateral education aid Figure 6.5 shows the regional distribution of bilateral education aid6. The highest proportion is provided for sub-Saharan Africa (approximately 27%), followed by East Asia and the Pacific (approximately 22%) and the Arab States (approximately 16%). These regions all face difficulties in meeting the Dakar goals by 2015 as reported in the EFA Report 2002 (UNESCO, 2002b). Other regions, however, face similar difficulties, but receive far less education aid. This is particularly the case with South and West Asia, which, despite having one-third of the world’s out-of-school-children, received less than 10% of aid to education. More aid than this was received by Latin America and the Caribbean, where the scale of educational problems is significantly less intense7. Although the distribution of education aid cannot be disentangled from broader economic and political considerations, most, if not all, funding and technical assistance agencies acknowledge the right to education and its significance for empowerment and development (Table 6.5). From this perspective, a distribution of aid reflecting comparative needs might be expected. However, as Table 6.6 shows, this is far from the case. The Arab States, Central Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean all receive more education aid per capita, per school-age child, per illiterate, and per out-of-school-child than the global average, whereas South and West Asia receives much less. Sub-Saharan Africa, on the other hand receives more than the global average on each indicator, with the exception of aid per out-of-school child. A closer analysis of country data confirms that aid is attracted by better-performing education systems. An analysis of 77 countries for which the net enrolment rate and the amount of bilateral aid per out-of-school child are available shows that the amount of aid per out-of-school child increases with the level of net enrolment (Figure 6.6). Similarly, for 120 countries having these data, a positive non-linear relationship is apparent between literacy rates and aid per illiterate adult (Figure 6.7). A closer analysis of country data confirms that aid is attracted by better-performing education systems. 2. Data on aid commitments may fluctuate significantly from year to year because agencies record aid in the year in which funding is committed rather than in the year it is disbursed. Biannual averages are therefore more reliable. 3. The DAC definition of basic education covers primary schooling, basic life skills for youth and adults, and early childhood education. 4. DAC education aid is classified according to three main sub-sectors: basic, secondary and post-secondary. What cannot be apportioned to any of these appears in a fourth category termed “unspecified”. 5. A survey was conducted for this report amongst eight significant bilateral aid providers to education: Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, United Kingdom, and the United States. The survey was designed first, to ascertain agency perspectives on reported DAC education statistics and second, to clarity policy directions and the impact that these may have on types and levels of assistence. 6. The regional distribution of bilateral education aid has been calculated from information in the CRS, adjusted for data gaps, and compared with official DAC development statistics (see Appendix 3). 7. The regional data obscure the needs of individual countries whose out-of-school populations and adult illiteracy rates may be relatively insignificant in global terms but constitute an overwhelming problem at the national level. This, for example, is the case of the Comoros, whose 49,761 out-of-school children constitute approximately half of the primary school-age population.

Multilateral aid to education Support to education from multilateral agencies (excluding the World Bank and the EC) fell over the periods 1998–99 and 2000–01 (Table 6.7). This decrease is explained solely by the decline in support from the regional development banks. Support for basic education involves all education aid in the case of UNICEF, some 86% for UNRWA and 47% for the European Commission8. As regards World Bank funding for education, trends in concessional finance (IDA) have followed a similar pattern to the Bank’s commercial lending (Figure 6.8). Having remained relatively stable throughout the first half of the 1990s, both then became more variable, and have subsequently been in decline. Furthermore, education has also declined as a proportion of total lending in recent years, and the IDA element now constitutes only half of its level in the mid-1990s. In terms of its regional distribution, high priority is given to sub-Saharan Africa and to South Asia in total IDA lending, and for education (Figure 6.9). IDA lending to South Asia to some extent counterbalances the comparatively lower allocations from bilateral agencies for that region. Table 6.8 summarizes total bilateral and multilateral aid to education and to basic education in 1998–99 and 2000–01. The bilateral flows dominate the picture. Both bilateral and multilateral aid to education decreased between 1998–99 and 2000–01. In contrast, there was a positive development for basic education, with aid increasing by between one-fifth and one-quarter under high and low assumptions, respectively. The multilateral agencies allocated a comparatively higher proportion of their total aid for basic education than did the bilateral agencies. However, these levels of support of around US$1.5 billion per year remain small when compared with the estimated level of additional aid of US$5.6 billion per year needed to reach the major EFA goals (UNESCO, 2002b: Chapter 4). 8. The breakdown for basic education is unavailable for the regional banks.

Summary The gap between rhetoric and reality in support for education seems to persist, although it may well be too early to see stated commitments since Dakar reflected in DAC recorded figures. Analysis of the most recent data shows that overall support for education from both multilateral and bilateral agencies has been declining in recent years. Multilateral support for basic education has also gone down. In contrast, support for basic education from bilateral agencies has increased and is possibly at a higher level than that captured by the DAC data because of recording deficiencies and allocations outside the basic education sub-sector. It is particularly important to recognize that increased allocations through the sub-sector ‘unspecified’ may compensate for decreased contributions to the basic education sub-sector in countries that strongly support sector-wide approaches. Nevertheless, even this more encouraging trend in support of basic education must be understood in the context of a smaller overall aid budget for education in general. It also remains small in comparison with projected needs for EFA. The analysis has also shown a persistent pattern of regional distribution of Official Development Assistance and support for education, targeting particularly sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia and the Pacific. South Asia receives a comparatively smaller proportion of both overall and education aid, although allocations of IDA funding for this region – both in general and for education – are more favourable than bilateral support. While all targeted regions have difficulties in terms of large numbers of out-of-school populations and adult illiterates, those countries with the greatest needs in these terms do not generally receive an aid allocation that reflects their circumstances. This is further reflected in the aid per capita data which suggests that aid is attracted to better performing systems.

Aid, education and gender Chapter 4 concluded that the promotion of gender parity and equality in education requires strong leadership from governments in order to redistribute resources within the education sector to meet the specific needs of girls. It also highlighted the need for more effective multi-sector partnerships and the direct engagement of women and girls in the processes of social change. The extent to which the existing commitments of the international community are directed to these ends is not easy to ascertain. An interrogation of OECD-DAC project data would be a useful exercise in this respect but has not been possible for this report. However, it is clear that gender equality, in and through education, has an increasingly prominent place in the policies of a good number of funding agencies. The Partnership on Sustainable Strategies for Girls’ Education9 is one indication of this interest. UNICEF continues to provide leadership internationally in promoting girls’ education (the subject of the The State of the World’s Children 2004 report), and other organizations and programmes are giving increased attention to gender in their work (e.g. in the Task Force on HIV/AIDS and Education10 and at the Commonwealth Secretariat11). Box 6.3 highlights the thrust of the work on gender and education by some bilateral agencies. A growing technical literature pays attention to the extent to which gender is being addressed in education sector projects and programmes, especially in Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) and Sector Wide Approaches (SWAs). Although many guidelines for the development of these approaches stress the central significance of gender equality (e.g. World Bank, 2001b), the extent to which PRSPs and SWAs are underpinned by good gender analysis remains unclear. One recent study of four PRSPs concludes that the twin requirements of broad-based participation and consultation on the one hand, and endorsement by the boards of the World Bank and the IMF on the other, have given rise to contradictions in both the content and the formulation of PRSPs. This is most evident in the limitations of the consultation process with civil society organizations and stakeholder communities and in the under-representation of women’s voices. This weakens the analysis of gender perspectives on poverty (Whitehead, 2003). As Box 6.4 indicates, this may be the cause, or the consequence, of confusion about how to address women as a specific group, and, in turn, broader gender issues within the education sector. As Box 6.5 shows, the weakness of gender analysis in the PRSPs re-surfaces in national MDG reports, while a survey of gender in EFA National Plans in Africa, Asia and Latin America raises similar concerns (Kanno, 2003). Literature on SWAs and education is broadly of four types: national monitoring and evaluation reports on education sector programmes; comparative studies of SWAs across countries; agency and research studies on the mechanics of SWAs; and analysis that focuses on the extent to which SWAs address, or meet, specific goals of access, inclusion, gender and quality. An initial review of this literature conducted for this report suggests that a number of studies (e.g. Elson and Evers, 1998) find that limited attention is paid to both gender outcomes and the inputs that affect them. A recent comparative study on Ghana, India and Uganda concluded that while sector programmes do have the potential to enhance the provision and quality of girls’ education, attention needs to be given to a set of major constraints: -‘Evaporation’ of national policy as gender objectives travel down the bureaucratic chain. -Failure to promote gender policy by development partners for fear of undermining local SWA ownership. - Focus on the expansion of girls’ enrolment in primary education (access) at the expense of attention to gender issues in education provision (quality) and a neglect of linkages to, and the promotion of, girls’ post-primary education. - Insufficient dialogue amongst development partners, and poor communication within agencies between gender and education specialists. - Lack of attention to power relations in the countries concerned and to women’s rights groups (Sibbons et al., 2000). In order to positively influence gender equity, SWAs need to be coherent, and agencies need to have a shared understanding of what constitutes an appropriate gender strategy in education. The very process of preparing and agreeing on an SWA provides an opportunity for the establishment of gender mainstreaming, provided that those in the partnership have a common understanding of what can be achieved. Where harmonized dialogue is lacking there are invariably differing definitions of gender concepts and approaches to gender equality. And where gender priorities are not matched by budget allocations, progress is further limited, although SWAs should provide the opportunity to undertake resource-based planning, driven by policy priorities and outcomes. 9. A partnership of the World Bank, UNICEF and DFID (see World Bank, 2003e). 10. HIV/AIDS Impact on Education Clearinghouse (see UNESCO-IIEP, 2003a). 11. Commonwealth Secretariat series on gender mainstreaming (e.g. Commonwealth Secretariat, 2003).