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

010CHAPTER 42Education for All Global Monitoring ReportA small groupof donorsdominates aidto education13. Aid to basic educationcovers pre-primary,primary, literacy and basiclife skills. Comprehensivedata on aid to forms ofbasic education otherthan primary are notreadily available, butprevious editions of theEFA Global MonitoringReport have shown thatthe amounts of aid forthese purposes are verylimited.Figure 4.7: After rising in the early part of the decade, aid commitments to basic education are stagnatingTotal aid commitments to education and basic education, 1999–2007Constant 2007 US$ billions8.27.6 7.99.53.2 3.2 3.4 3.4principally the United States, and some multilateralagencies. The net effect was a 31% decline inbilateral aid commitments to basic educationfrom 2006 to 2007, to below US$3 billion.Another important factor behind the decline wasthe timing of commitments to major aid recipients.Commitments to the twenty largest recipients ofaid to basic education, including Ethiopia, Maliand the United Republic of Tanzania, dropped fromUS$2.8 billion in 2006 to US$2.0 billion in 2007.While fluctuations in commitments are an inevitablepart of aid programming, recent trends highlightserious systemic problems. One is that a smallgroup of donors dominates aid to education. In 2006and 2007, the five largest donors to education– France, Germany, the Netherlands, the UnitedKingdom and the World Bank’s InternationalDevelopment Association (IDA) – accounted for59% of total commitments to the sector. With acombined commitment of US$3.5 billion, Franceand Germany account for over one-quarter ofoverall aid to education. Similarly, the five largestdonors in basic education – the EuropeanCommission, the IDA, the Netherlands, the UnitedKingdom and the United States – accounted for61% of commitments (Figure 4.8). An importantconsequence of this concentration is that relativelysmall movements by one or two key donors canhave large global consequences, as the combinedeffect of the Netherlands’ and United Kingdom’said programmes showed in 2006 and 2007.The record on aid commitments to basic educationis a matter of growing concern. Fluctuations on thescale recorded since 2003 raise questions over thepredictability of future disbursements. While thedata in this section are global, volatile commitment10.44.512.09.912.3 12.11999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 20075.6Constant 2007 US$ billions7.910.03.3 4.0Note: The figure on the right takes two or three year averages in order to smooth out volatility and make the overall trend clearer.Source: OECD-DAC (2009d).4.05.54.310.9Total aidto educationTotal aid tobasic educationlevels have consequences for national budgetsand education planning in many aid-dependentcountries. Developing a broader base of donorsupport for education is one key to a less volatilepattern of commitments.The distribution of aid to low- and middle-incomecountries has changed little since Dakar(Figure 4.9). In 2006 and 2007, low-incomecountries received just under half of all aid toeducation, on average, and almost 60% of aidto basic education. Middle-income countriesaccounted for nearly two-fifths of overall aid toeducation. Much of that goes to the post-secondarylevel, though these countries account for a quarterof aid to basic education.Primary education needsto be given higher priorityCountries do not expand the choices open to peoplethrough primary education alone. Progress towardsuniversal primary education brings increaseddemand for secondary education – and secondaryschools have a vital role to play in training teachers.Investment in post-primary education is alsoimportant in developing skills that strengthenprospects for economic growth.For all these reasons, aid to post-primary educationis justified in terms of the Dakar commitments.The challenge for donors – and for aid recipients –is to achieve the right balance of support for thedifferent levels of education. How successfully arethey meeting that challenge?In signing the Dakar Framework for Action, donorspledged to increase the share they devoted to primaryeducation and other forms of basic education. 1312.24.8 4.91999-2001 2002-2003 2004-2005 2006-2007228