Gender and Education for All THE LEAP TO EQUALITY

Chapter 6 - Meeting our international commitments

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Strengthening international co-ordination International efforts to find ways of working together more effectively underpin much of the current global impetus to enhance aid flows, improve the use of aid, collect and analyse better data and learn from research. In the context of EFA, UNESCO has a primary responsibility to promote international co-ordination and is therefore the main focus of this section.

UNESCO and EFA co-ordination UNESCO has a primary responsibility to promote international co-ordination The EFA Report 2002 (UNESCO, 2002b) suggested that UNESCO had interpreted its challenging Dakar co-ordination role in a relatively conservative manner. This continues to be the case. At the request of the World Education Forum, the Director-General of UNESCO established the EFA High-Level Group. This meets annually with a membership that is re-established each year. UNESCO has also created the Working Group on Education for All which has met on four occasions since Dakar. Both groups work to a set of publicly stated objectives. In particular, the small and flexible High-Level Group is mandated to serve as a lever for political commitment and technical and financial resource mobilization (UNESCO, 2000d). UNESCO has also determined that the Group should be a vehicle for reviewing progress towards the Dakar goals and for assessing the extent to which international commitments are being met. The EFA Report 2002 influenced both the structure and the content of the second meeting of the group in Abuja, Nigeria, in 2002 – a model for the next meeting in New Delhi (India) in 2003. However, on current evidence, it is not clear that the High-Level Group is yet proving to be influential in meeting its primary purpose. Neither the communiqués (Box 6.9) nor the reports (UNESCO, 2002d; UNESCO, 2003f) from the first two meetings (Paris, 2001 and Abuja, 2002) have had any visible international impact, either in generating political commitment or in mobilizing the resources required to achieve EFA. The group has however, offered a broad commentary on progress and on international commitments. The apparent limitations of the High-Level Group are not a failure of good intentions. Indeed, in principle, the Group has the potential to deliver a strong message, underpinned by the EFA Global Monitoring Report. However, UNESCO is faced with a difficult conundrum. Even with a strong message, the Group has no internationally recognized authority beyond its Dakar mandate, nor does it have clear lines of communication with the wider United Nations system, except through UNESCO’s own governance bodies. Therefore, the extent to which the group’s pronouncements are influential is highly dependent on the quality of its output, upon UNESCO’s own external political relationships, and the degree to which members of the Group are themselves pro-active in support of its outcomes. On this last point, because the membership changes each year, at least in part, a largely different Group assembles to assess the impact of the previous year’s conclusions and recommendations. This has the merit of widening the opportunity for different countries to participate in the discussions of the Group. However, its weakness is that such an arrangement is less likely to sustain a strong, critical and consistent voice in support of EFA. A related challenge is how to secure global attention for the messages from the High-Level Group. Broad injunctions to governments, regional bodies and agencies (such as the Abuja communiqué, Box 6.9) that are little different from those emanating from other international conferences on education have a limited lifespan. The EFA Working Group has met on four occasions (Table 6.11), in each case with over fifty participants. The Group has been described as ‘an informal mechanism to provide technical guidance to the EFA movement. It creates and sustains partnerships, supports regional and sub-regional networks, and ensures linkages among inter-agency flagship programmes in the follow-up to Dakar. It deliberates on key issues and recommends priorities for collective action to follow up the World Education Forum. It also prepares the High-Level Group meeting on EFA’ (UNESCO, 2003a). This is a weighty agenda, particularly for an informal group, meeting over a day and a half with only partial continuity among its membership. Table 6.11 suggests that in fulfilling its very broad role, the EFA Working Group has vacillated somewhat between a pro-active task-force approach, exemplified by work on An International Strategy to Put the Dakar Framework for Action on Education for All into Operation (UNESCO, 2002a; UNESCO, 2003a) and a more general sharing of experience. The product of its discussions on technical issues, such as the financing of education, has not added greatly to the substantive debate. Group recommendations are recorded in the report of the Working Group but these are not subject to follow-up or report-back discussions the following year. Moreover, the idea that the Working Group might be influential in the design and development of the High-Level Group has been modified, so that since 2002, a group of ‘sherpas’, which is broadly representative of the membership of the Working Group, has been convened by UNESCO to help to design the agenda and possible outputs of the High-Level Group. There is clearly a price worth paying for evidence-based, international consultation, networking and dialogue. This is a well-established UNESCO function and to a degree it sustains a certain momentum through becoming a fixture on the annual calendar. However, as presently constituted it is difficult to see how either of the two groups can deliver on their respective mandates and make a tangible contribution to international co-operation. If this judgement is justified, either the mandates or the mechanisms deserve re-examination. The following possibilities might be considered: The High-Level Group: -Membership: The Dakar mandate of small and flexible has been interpreted to require a group membership of approximately twenty-five countries, agencies and NGOs invited on a broadly representative basis and partly changing each year. One option would be for the Director-General of UNESCO to convene a smaller group of high profile, ex-officio members, whose reputation would attract global attention to their findings. They would be invited to serve for a minimum of three years. -Product: the group’s product (a declaration perhaps) should be known for its independent voice, vision, and proposals for action underpinned by rigorous analysis and research, supplied in large part by the EFA Monitoring Report. -Pathways: The output of the High-Level Group would be formally presented to the United Nations Secretary-General or to a committee of the General Assembly. Clear channels for the group’s findings to influence the World Bank, the G8 and major regional forums would need to be identified. -Dialogue: A new approach to facilitating Group dialogue is needed and to generate collective responsibility for its outcomes. The Working Group: -An option that is consistent with the suggestions for the High-Level Group is for the Working Group to become much more of a technical committee of the High-Level Group. It would monitor progress and actions arising from the previous year’s High-Level Group. It would help to prepare for High-Level Group meetings by advising on agenda, emphases and follow-up. It would help draft communiqués or declarations and liaise with High-Level Group members as necessary between meetings. The broad sharing of information, which is the primary function of the current Working Group, could be pursued in a range of existing UNESCO conferences and forums. It remains the case that UNESCO is under-resourced for the role that is has been asked to play. This is increasingly recognized (e.g. Bertrand, 2003). The existing EFA co-ordination capacity in UNESCO cannot undertake much more than the administrative function required to organize the meetings of the Groups. A larger and more technically diverse secretariat is needed. Involving UNESCO institutes more thoroughly in the process could also make a difference. The above analysis suggests that both Groups have settled into a particular way of working that can best be described as ‘consultative arenas’ (Little and Miller, 2000). In their review of The International Consultative Forum on Education for All (which operated in the 1990s), Little and Miller made the distinction between an ‘arena’ and a ‘platform’. The former is described as ‘a loosely-organized coalition, in which participants act on the basis of shared assumptions about general purpose and desirable outcomes, but are driven by different imperatives and employ different strategies.’ The latter is conceived as a ‘stage, a display place, raised area, political manifesto or political programme’. Within this framework, they characterized the multi-party, multi-agency Consultative Forum as an ‘arena’, a focal point and the symbol of the shared global vision and the area within which that shared vision has been kept alive. The post-Dakar evidence suggests that UNESCO has sustained the idea of ‘consultative arenas’, inviting people from different constituencies, on a broadly representative basis, for an annual dialogue and examination of progress. This is similar to many conference activities around the world. It is neither threatening nor intrusive. Nevertheless in a world that is highly competitive in the attention that it gives to different issues and priorities, and to the resources allocated to them, a strong, well-coordinated, well-publicized ‘platform’ for EFA is almost an essential prerequisite for success. This is not provided by the current mechanisms. Significant change is required to generate an impact appropriate to the scale of the EFA challenge, and to the responsibilities assigned to the High-Level Group. The output of the High-Level Group would be formally presented to the UN Secretary-General.

Better data – better monitoring National statistical priorities should not be distorted by international demands. A consistent message in nearly all reports on EFA is the critical importance of accurate and timely data if education policy is to be evidence-based and if the monitoring of progress and evaluation is to be meaningful. This is one example of a broader international concern for better indicators of development outcomes. For example, work is underway to develop a global framework to monitor the policies and actions of developing countries and development agencies for achieving the MDGs (World Bank Development Committee, 2003a). This draws on MDG reports orchestrated by UNDP, the work of the Millennium Development Project (Box 6.7) and of the United Nations agencies that contribute to the Secretary-General’s reports on the Monterrey Consensus and the Millennium Declaration. The work of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) and the findings of this report have a contribution to make in support of these efforts, in addition to monitoring progress towards all of the EFA goals. In the education sector, it remains the case that many countries and international bodies are constrained in their ability to promote well-informed planning and programming by the lack of accurate and comprehensive data. This problem, as noted elsewhere in this report, is particularly acute with regard to literacy but remains a fundamental difficulty for education systems more generally. It is also a key issue if gender equality in education is to be realized, as the lack of disaggregated data remains a significant problem in developing gender-aware policy. For this situation to improve, there is an indisputable requirement to improve the collection and the quality of information. The problems of doing this have been set out by the UIS (Lievesley, 2003), including recognition that without enhanced capacity in many countries only limited progress is possible, both in the collection and use of administrative data and household surveys. While there is a regular and justifiable call on UNESCO and the international community to strengthen UIS, the scale and complexity of the issue of improving the quality of data requires well-coordinated international partnerships. Box 6.10 provides a brief summary of some of the activities and programmes that are designed to enhance co-ordination in support of monitoring educational progress, some of which derive their authority from EFA mandates and others from particular regional and institutional interests and programmes. In promoting and strengthening these partnerships, UIS has suggested that five principles should underpin the collection and co-ordination of international data: -No duplication. Collaboration across agencies with agreements to have joint data collection where feasible and to share data rather than collecting it anew. -Data collection should reflect national needs, with national statisticians consulted about the international database. National statistical priorities should not be distorted by international demands. -International agencies should be temperate in what data are requested. -The idea of ‘key’ data is attractive. Equally, concentration on too small a set of data can mislead. -International databases should utilise existing sources of data within countries rather than requiring new data collection. Building capacity is a critical part of all data strategies. These and related topics have been the subject of debate over the past year between UIS, the World Bank, USAID and UNICEF and were discussed informally at the International Working Group on Education meeting in Finland in June 2003. These consultations augur well for stronger and more coherent partnerships but require more funding. In a different but related context, OECD-DAC is co-ordinating the collection of education-related aid data, a topic in which this Report has considerable interest and which has led to a fruitful dialogue reflected earlier in this chapter about ways of strengthening the reporting and analysis of aid to education. Finally, brief mention needs to be made of the growing number of international reports issued each year. In 2003–04 four major reports will be published with relevance for EFA, including the EFA Report. The Human Development Report focuses on achieving the Millennium Development Goals, The World Development Report on public services and The State of the World’s Children on girls’ education (Box 6.11). This is healthy in helping to ensure that EFA is given priority attention in international debate and policy dialogue.

Flagships: the benefits of inter-agency co-ordination A clear strength of the EFA flagships is that cross-cutting activities are given a status and profile that might otherwise be lost as individual agency programmes. The World Education Forum in Dakar emphasised the benefits of international and regional agencies working together on major cross-cutting themes that have a strong bearing on the achievement of EFA. Fourteen thematic studies prepared for Dakar – the product of inter-agency co-operation – showed relationships between access, equity and quality in education and gender, technology, aid, conflict, HIV/AIDS, health and governance. These connections are reflected in the twelve strategies included in the Dakar Framework for Action (UNESCO, 2000f). In addition, there was a strong and practical demonstration of agency co-operation with the launch by the United Nations Secretary-General of the Ten-Year United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative (UNGEI). In the immediate aftermath of the World Education Forum, UNESCO identified the potential benefits of recognizing, supporting and linking inter-agency programmes and activities. It came up with the idea of ‘inter-agency flagship programmes’19 as one way of consolidating international co-operation (UNESCO, 2000d). At that time, six existing initiatives were identified as demonstrating a strong inter-agency approach: FRESH (Focusing Resources on Effective School Health); AIDS and education; early childhood care and education; literacy in the context of the then-proposed United Nations Literacy Decade; UNGEI; and education in emergency situations (UNESCO, 2000d). UNESCO also suggested that new inter-agency initiatives should be encouraged in other areas such as inclusive education, education and child labour, women and education, new information technologies, and education statistics. By the time the EFA Working Group met in July 2003 to review EFA flagships, there were nine partnerships in place following the initiation of inter-agency activities on ‘The Right to Education for Persons with Disabilities: Towards Inclusion’, ‘Education for Rural People’ (ERP), and ‘Teachers and the Quality of Education’. Basic information on each of these nine flagships is provided in Table 6.12. A clear strength of the EFA flagships idea is that significant cross-cutting activities are given a status and a profile that might otherwise be lost as individual agency programmes. They provide a focal point for the wide array of agencies that are active in the different theme areas and it is clear that the idea has, in itself, given impetus to new partnerships, for example, on disability. The flagship programmes work in different ways – from formal initiatives with time-bound objectives to loosely-structured information networks. Some emphasise activities designed to offer direct technical support to country-level strategies and programmes, for example FRESH, ERP and UNGEI. Others place greater emphasis on advocacy, research and information exchange. This is true, for example, of ECCE and Education in Emergency and Crisis. But there is no hard and fast dividing line as each partnership defines its own comparative advantage. This diversity of function and activity is illustrated in Box 6.13 for a sample of four of the programmes: UNGEI, Disability and Inclusion, HIV/AIDS and Emergency and Crisis. It remains too early to say whether the flagships, individually and collectively, will add significant value to the achievement of the EFA goals, over and above existing international partnerships in areas such as HIV/AIDS and emergencies. The idea of flagships certainly gives a sense of collective endeavour and partnership in pursuit of a common goal, and it offers an international framework with the potential to recognise and exploit linkages, for example, in the relationship between girls’ education and HIV/AIDS. But ultimately it is the extent to which the programmes contribute to the achievement of significant outcomes at a country level which is key and this requires a very clear strategy as to how the interface between ‘flagships’ and national education strategies actually functions, especially if a number of these inter-agency partnerships are active in the same country. National as well as international co-ordination is required. As UNESCO is the lead agency of two flagships and joint lead of five, it has the potential to play a central role in strengthening the overall impact of flagship programmes. This would suggest the importance of ensuring a pro-active co-ordination role in its own participation across the flagships, backed by provision of an appropriate level of resources and the mobilisation of its sectors, field offices and institutes in support of flagship activity. The issue of whether there should be formal co-ordination across the flagships by UNESCO, including a strong flow of information about all of the flagships (which are neither well known nor well understood internationally), was the subject of some discussion at the fourth meeting of the EFA Working Group on EFA (UNESCO, 2003e) but still remains largely unresolved. If there is a demand for UNESCO to take on a stronger, central co-ordinating function, this has to be balanced against the need to respect the diversity and flexibility that is the hallmark of the flagship partnerships. It also has resource and staffing implications for UNESCO. 19. EFA flagship programmes were subsequently defined as a structured set of activities, carried out by voluntary partners to provide a better understanding of EFA and to contribute to the elimination of specific obstacles to the Dakar goals through targeted and co-ordinated action (UNESCO, 2002d).

Summary There is a significant gap between international rhetoric and reality. It is clear from this overview of aid flows, initiatives, campaigns, and efforts to improve co-ordination that there is no lack of international activity on basic education. Indeed if success were to be judged by the range of commitments, initiatives, projects and publications, it would appear that EFA is receiving the attention it rightly deserves. But of course that is not the basis on which to make well-founded judgements. Three years after Dakar, the international response to enabling every girl, boy, woman and man to enjoy their right to a basic education remains well short of their needs and the commitments that have been made. This is not to deny the central role of national governments in achieving EFA, but it is recognition of the significant gap between international rhetoric and reality, relating both to levels of funding for EFA and to a real willingness to work together in a well-coordinated manner. There are many political and technical constraints to making the leap of faith and practice required but it is difficult to be optimistic unless that leap is made. As the United Nations Secretary-General noted in his recent report to the UN General Assembly, albeit in a slightly different frame of reference, ‘Member states [of the UN] need at least to take a hard look at the existing ‘architecture’ of international institutions and ask themselves whether it is adequate for the tasks we have before us’ (United Nations, 2003a).