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

PROGRESS TOWARDS THE EFA GOALSEstimating the cost of achieving Education for Allfinancing challenge with sufficient urgency.In the cases of Chad and Nigeria, the problemis less one of revenue mobilization than the lowpriority attached to education in general andbasic education in particular.It should be emphasized that the ‘best effort’thresholds used are an imperfect guide to publicpolicy. Revenue-raising capacity partly dependson export structures. Countries with largemineral assets may be better placed than othersto increase revenue collection. For countriesemerging from conflict, such as Nepal and SierraLeone, increasing the share of national incomecollected in revenue may be a slow processinvolving the restoration of credible publicinstitutions and confidence in government. Theestimates here should therefore be treated as anevaluation of what is possible under reasonableconditions, not as a full assessment of what eachcountry can achieve in practice. With the dataavailable, it is difficult to generate preciseEducation for All financing estimates forcountries such as Afghanistan, Liberia andSierra Leone, but there are strong grounds forrecognizing, as most aid donors have done, theurgent need for a large up-front increase ineducation finance, given the limited capacity ofthese countries’ governments to raise that finance.Donors need to increase aidto close the remaining gapSuccessive issues of the EFA Global MonitoringReport have drawn the attention of the donorcommunity to the gap between aid levels and thelevel of financing required to meet the Dakartargets. The revised global cost estimate suggeststhe gap is far larger than previously assumed. Anyprospect of accelerated progress towards the 2015targets hinges critically on a scaled-up donoreffort. The bottom-line message to emerge fromthe costing exercise is that two-thirds of theadditional resources required will have to beprovided through aid.The residual aid component of the Education for Allfinancing requirement can be extrapolated fromthe costing exercise. Figure 2.49 summarizes thefinancing gap that remains once prospects foradditional domestic resources have beenexhausted. Table 2.11 provides an approximatebreakdown of this financing deficit by educationFigure 2.49: Financing gaps are large and unlikely to be eliminated by current donor pledgesBreakdown of annual resource needs to achieve basic education goals40Constant 2007 US$ billions3530252015Average annualresources neededto finance EFA(2008-2015)US$36 billionFinancing gapUS$16 billionUS$4 billionUS$3 billionAdditional resourcesfrom domestic prioritizationAdditional domestic resourcesfrom economic growthFinancing gapCurrent aid to basiceducation (2006-2007)US$3 billionAdditional aid to basiceducation if GleneaglesUS$2 billionRemainingcommitments metshortfallUS$11 billionThe financinggap for basiceducationis aroundUS$16 billionannually105CurrentestimatedresourcesUS$12 billion0Notes: Breakdown of annual resource needs does not add up to the total due to rounding. The percentage increase in aidbetween 2005 and 2010 associated with the Gleneagles targets (see Chapter 4) are usual to project 2005 basic education commitmentsto 2010 for each country covered.Sources: EPDC and UNESCO (2009); OECD-DAC (2009d).129