Reaching the marginalized: EFA global monitoring report, 2010; 2010

001CHAPTER 22Education for All Global Monitoring ReportMany countriescan mobilizeadditionalresources forbasic educationabout economic growth, revenue collectionand public spending patterns. For this analysis,a ‘best effort’ benchmark was established toassess national financing capacity. Factoring inprojected economic growth, 64 a significant sourceof extra revenue, it is possible to estimate theadditional resources that can be generated by2015 if the countries covered (a) increase theaverage share of government revenue in GDP toat least 17%; (b) raise the share of revenue goingto education to at least 20%; and (c) ensure thatabout 70% of the education budget is devotedto pre-primary, primary and lower secondary. 65Where countries are already exceeding thesethresholds, it is assumed that current valuesare maintained up to 2015.Applying these thresholds points to the scopefor a far stronger level of national effort. If everycountry covered in the study reached eachthreshold, it would expand the financial resourceenvelope for basic education on average byabout 0.9 percentage points of GDP by 2015.Put differently, it would provide slightly moreFigure 2.48: Many countries can mobilize additional domestic resources for basic educationCurrent and additional resources countries devote to basic education as a share of GDP4.5than a third of the additional resources requiredto achieve the basic education goals by 2015.Increasing scope for additional domestic resource mobilizationThe aggregate picture inevitably obscuressignificant differences between countries(Figure 2.48). Some, such as Benin andMozambique, are close to the ‘best effort’thresholds in all target areas. By contrast,Chad combines high levels of revenue-raisingwith low levels of financial commitment toeducation. Nigeria raises 34% of national incomein government revenue, but has one of the lowestlevels of commitment to primary education amongthe forty-six countries covered. Pakistan performspoorly on all three counts: government revenuerepresents a small share of national income, theshare of revenue spent on basic education isamong the lowest for any of these low-incomecountries and the share spent on primaryeducation is the very lowest in the group. Thecountry has the potential to more than triplethe share of GDP currently allocated to basiceducation, suggesting that successivegovernments have failed to address the education4.03.5Additional resources mobilized in 2015 if thresholds met2007 estimated resources for basic educationBasic education spending as % of GDP3.02.52.01.51.00.564. Resource projectionsuse the latest IMFeconomic growthforecasts (IMF, 2009f).65. Targets for the exactshare of the budgetdevoted to Education forAll depend on the lengthof primary and lowersecondary cycles. SeeEPDC and UNESCO (2009)for details. Economicgrowth projections aretaken from the April 2009IMF forecast (IMF, 2009f).0.0North SudanSouth SudanGuineaMaliKenyaBeninMozambiqueSenegalBurundiZambiaPapua New GuineaMalawiSomaliaLao PDRRwandaCôte d’IvoireMadagascarU. R. TanzaniaTajikistanHaitiNepalLiberiaYemenViet NamLow income country averageSierra LeoneMauritaniaUgandaGhanaTogoGuinea-BissauKyrgyzstanC. A. R.NigeriaBurkina FasoEthiopiaD. R. CongoZimbabweCambodiaChadMyanmarBangladeshGambiaAfghanistanPakistanEritreaNote: Excludes countries where the thresholds are already exceeded.Source: EPDC and UNESCO (2009).128