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

2100CHAPTER 4Education for All Global Monitoring ReportToday,humanitarian aidis dominatedby food andemergencynutritionprogrammes,with long-termaid to agriculture,education andhealth figuringonly marginallyFigure 4.15: Spending per primary school child is lowin conflict-affected poor countriesTotal aid disbursements to basic education per primary school agechild, 2006–2007 averageEritreaRwandaAfghanistanSenegalNepalEthiopiaSierra LeoneBurundiGuinea-BissauAngolaUgandaPakistanSudanSomaliaChadLiberiaC. A. R.Côte d’IvoireD. R. CongoMyanmarAverage conflict-affectedAverage other low-income665544322109914141413201917Constant 2007 US$Note: Only low-income countries with a primary school age population above150,000 are included.Source: OECD-DAC (2009d).In Afghanistan, aid has played a critical rolein expanding education opportunities. Overall,however, the aid allocation patterns raisequestions about donor priorities regarding thedifferent recipient countries. In some cases,there are marked disparities in aid levelsbetween conflict-affected countries in the sameregion, or even neighbouring countries – suchas Burundi and Rwanda (Box 4.9).From humanitarian to development aid —the missing link‘Support for the re-establishment and continuity ofeducation must be a priority strategy for donors andNGOs in conflict and post-conflict situations,’ wroteGraça Machel in 1996 (Machel, 1996, p. 47). Morethan a decade later, most aid for conflict-affectedcountries continues to be delivered through shortterm,uncoordinated projects that fail to lay thefoundations on which to rebuild education systems.While donor policy statements increasinglyrecognize the importance of integrating short-termhumanitarian assistance with long-term social andeconomic reconstruction, progress towards a more‘joined-up’ policy framework has been limited.91226Humanitarian assistance covers a broad spectrumof activities, but countries affected by violentconflict figure prominently among recipients.Such aid has increased since 1999–2000, thoughits share in total aid commitments declined from9% in 1999–2000 to 7% in 2006–2007 (OECD-DAC,2009d). Estimates suggest that educationaccounted for just 2% of total humanitarian aid– a meagre US$237 million in 2008 (Office forthe Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 2009).In many conflict-affected countries, expenditureon security operations and emergency assistanceoverwhelmingly dominates donor support, withlong-term development in general – and educationin particular – taking a back seat. In Liberia, forexample, the cost of United Nations peacekeepingoperations has consistently been more than doubletotal aid flows since 2004. Only 2% of the total aidwas allocated to education in 2004–2007. Duringthis post-conflict phase, humanitarian aidcontinued to play a significant role (OECD-DAC,2009d). But it did not make up the shortfall foreducation: in humanitarian as in development aid,education accounted for just 2%. This suggeststhat longer-term, more sustainable approachesto supporting basic service delivery are not yetbeing addressed (Figure 4.16).Another example comes from the DemocraticRepublic of the Congo. In the five years after thesigning of the 2003 peace accord, developmentaid was nominally higher than spending on UnitedNations peacekeeping. However, this was largelybecause, under an agreement signed just afterthe peace accord, creditors wrote off a large shareof the country’s debt stock, which is counted asaid even though it entails no real financial flows.Humanitarian aid has been a significant proportionof actual assistance from donors, reflecting thedifficult environment in which they operate.The 2003 peace accords swiftly broke down,as did subsequent accords. Today, humanitarianaid is dominated by food and emergency nutritionprogrammes, with long-term aid to agriculture,education and health figuring only marginally.In 2007, US$5 million, or only 1% of humanitarianaid, supported education interventions in theDemocratic Republic of the Congo, far shortof the US$27 million identified as a minimumrequirement for education in the 2007humanitarian action plan (United Nations, 2007a).The experience of the Democratic Republic of theCongo illustrates both the relative neglect of social242