Chapter 2. Progress towards the EFA goals - Unesco

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CHAPTER 2
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Education for All Global Monitoring Report
Removing cost barriers to vital maternal and
child health services. Inability to pay is a major
factor limiting access to basic maternal and
child health services (Gilson and McIntyre, 2005;
Pearson, 2004). Recent experience from
countries including Ghana, Nepal, Senegal,
Uganda and Zambia provides evidence that
eliminating charges for basic health services
is often followed by a rapid rise in the uptake
of services, especially by the poor (Deininger
and Mpuga, 2005; Yates, 2009) (Box 2.2).
Box 2.2: Removing cost barriers to maternal and child health services
The removal of cost barriers has played a critical role in opening up
opportunities for education. Yet cost barriers to maternal and child health
care remain largely intact, with damaging consequences for health and
education. The inability of poor households to afford health costs often
leads to fatal delays in treatment or to their wholesale exclusion from
formal health care. Research in countries as diverse as Chad, India and
Sudan points to cost as a major factor restricting the use by poor women
of maternal and child health services.
As in education, the scale of the barriers that fees create for the very poor
is often revealed when fees are removed. When Uganda withdrew health
fees in 2001, the number of outpatients visiting hospitals went the same
way as school enrolments after fees were withdrawn several years earlier:
attendance rates doubled in less than a year, with the poorest groups
recording the highest increases. After Burundi removed all health fees for
pregnant women and children in 2006, average monthly births in hospitals
promptly rose by 61%. In Nepal, the removal of fees, allied to increased
investment in the recruitment and training of community health workers,
has also increased access to care.
Many governments across Africa and beyond are reconsidering health fees.
There is compelling evidence that charging for basic services is ineffective,
inefficient — fees generate only 5% to 6% of health sector revenue — and
inequitable. In the past two years, Burundi, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia,
the Niger, Senegal and Zambia have abolished fees in key areas. Most major
development agencies, including the WHO and the World Bank, have also
adopted clear positions against fees. Meanwhile, some donors have provided
additional aid to countries that have removed fees, including France (for the
Niger) and the United Kingdom (for Burundi, Ghana, Nepal and Zambia) .
Eliminating user fees on maternal and child health care should be seen as
an urgent priority. However, it is not a stand-alone strategy. Rapid increases
in demand for already overstretched services can lead to deterioration in
quality and long queues for treatment — outcomes that undermined the
benefits of free maternal health care in Ghana. As in the education sector,
making access more affordable should be seen as one element in a broader
package of policy reforms. Increased investment to strengthen health
systems, greater equity in public spending and improved governance are all
important. And there is no substitute for recruiting and training more health
workers. The shortage of trained health workers is estimated at over
1 million in sub-Saharan Africa alone.
Sources: Yates (2009); Nabyonga et al. (2005); Batungwanayo and Reyntjens (2006);
Cohen and Dupas (2007); Gilson and McIntyre (2005); Witter et al. (2009).
Putting nutrition at the centre of the poverty
reduction agenda. Over the past two decades
Viet Nam has achieved some of the world’s most
rapid reductions in child malnutrition. Its
National Target Programme has focused on
the 2,374 communes with the highest rates of
poverty and child malnutrition. Supplementary
feeding programmes and maternal and child
health care have figured prominently. National
Institute of Nutrition surveys indicate that
stunting rates fell by one-quarter from 1999
to 2005 (Khan et al., 2008). In Brazil, the Zero
Hunger programme, a concerted drive to combat
malnutrition, contributed to a fall in malnutrition
rates in the north-east, the poorest region, from
18% to 16% in the decade to 2005 (Ruel, 2008).
Implementing effective social protection.
Programmes that provide parents with income,
services and incentives can help combat early
childhood deprivation. Large-scale programmes
such as Bolsa Familia in Brazil and
Oportunidades in Mexico directly link cash
transfers to participation in child nutrition
programmes – and both have reduced stunting
and improved cognitive development (Fiszbein
et al., 2009) (Box 2.3).
The artificial separation of health and education
in public policy is particularly damaging for early
childhood provision. Education planners often
measure progress in primary education by
numbers entering classrooms, pupil/teacher ratios
and the quality of school infrastructure. There is
a widespread view that children’s nutritional and
health status before school age is a health policy
matter. This silo mentality produces a distorted
picture of policy priorities. Millions of children enter
school having suffered irreparable damage to their
learning potential as a result of malnutrition and
micronutrient deficiencies. Poor maternal health
and risks during pregnancy and childbirth are
important contributory factors. The upshot of public
policy failure in the areas of nutrition and maternal
and child health care is not just unnecessary
human suffering, but also the erosion of benefits
associated with investment in education and
progress in getting children into school.
Early childhood education
programmes — a mixed record
Learning starts in the home, as children manipulate
objects and materials, explore the world around
them and develop language. During the crucial
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