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

THE AID COMPACT: FALLING SHORT OF COMMITMENTSAid for educationDakar forum. Unfortunately, they are not. Ifdonors increased aid in line with their Gleneaglescommittment and the share directed towardsbasic education remained constant, there wouldstill be a financing gap of some US$11 billionagainst the requirements identified in this Report.Donors need to urgently review both the overalllevel of planned aid and its distribution by sector.Disbursements are still rising —but are commitments waning?Effective national planning also requires a clearindication of how much aid can be expected infuture years. Recruiting teachers in 2010 hasbudget implications for salaries in 2012. Similarly,bringing more children into primary school andensuring that they complete a basic educationrequires planning classroom construction andpurchases of books and other teaching materials.That is why aid commitments, which act as asignal for future disbursements, are important.Disbursements and commitments are not directlycomparable: aid committed by donors this year maybe allocated to national programmes over one, two,three or more years. Another complicating factoris that several donors, notably some multilateralinstitutions, do not report disbursements to theOECD-DAC and so are not included in the analysisof disbursements in this Report. 9Disbursed aid has been on a steadily risingtrend both for education in general and forbasic education (Figure 4.6). Overall aid flows toeducation reached US$10.8 billion in 2007, morethan double the level in 2002. 10 Aid disbursementsto basic education grew more slowly – fromUS$2.1 billion in 2002 to US$4.1 billion in 2007 –indicating a slight distribution shift towardssecondary and post-secondary provision: the shareof basic education in total education disbursementsfell from 41% to 38% over the period.The picture for aid commitments contrastsstrongly with that for disbursements. Overallcommitment levels are stagnating and the trendis highly erratic (Figure 4.7). In 2007, reportedcommitments stood at US$12.1 billion, aroundthe same level as in 2004.Basic education remains an area of particularconcern. While aid commitments rose in the yearsafter Dakar, with an increase of 58% between1999–2000 and 2003–2004, the period since then hasbeen marked by stagnation punctuated by episodesFigure 4.6: Aid disbursements to education have been on a steadily rising trendTotal aid disbursements to education and basic education, 2002–2007Constant 2007 US$ billions5.22.17.52.67.92.9of steep decline. In real terms, the US$4.3 billionreported in 2007 represented a cut of 22% from2006 – or about US$1.2 billion in real finance –so that commitments were below the 2003 level.The decline in commitments to basic education wasfar greater than that for education as a whole. 11Several factors contributed to the steep declinein aid commitments for basic education. In 2006,the Netherlands and the United Kingdom madelarge pledges to the Catalytic Fund of the FastTrack Initiative. The Netherlands also committedresources to UNICEF for education in countriesaffected by conflict and humanitarianemergencies. 12 As a result, commitments fromthe Netherlands and the United Kingdom spikedin 2006 and declined the following year. Thedecline was only partly offset by an increasein commitments from other bilateral donors,8.39.73.710.82002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007Note: Box 4.3 explains the calculation of total aid to education.Source: OECD-DAC (2009d).Box 4.3: Assessing the total aid contributionto the education sector3.24.1Total aidto educationTotal aid tobasic educationAid to education comes not only as direct allocations to theeducation sector but also through general budget support. Asin previous EFA Global Monitoring Reports, this Report includespart of general budget support as aid to education. It also assumesthat half of all aid to education classified as ‘level unspecified’is designated for basic education. Thus:Total aid to education = direct aid to education + 20% of generalbudget support.Total aid to basic education = direct aid to basic education + 10%of general budget support + 50% of ‘level unspecified’ aid toeducation.9. The African DevelopmentFund, the Asian DevelopmentFund and the InternationalDevelopment Association(IDA) do not reportdisbursements to the OECD-DAC. Information on IDAdisbursements for educationfor this Report was obtaineddirectly from the World Bankand hence included in theanalysis of disbursements.10. All figures in thissubsection are expressedin constant 2007 prices.Data on disbursement arenot available before 2002.11. Commitments foreducation as a whole fellby 2% from 2006 to 2007.12. These commitmentsamounted to US$553 millionfor the Catalytic Fund andUS$231 million for UNICEF.227