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

THE AID COMPACT: FALLING SHORT OF COMMITMENTSAid for educationBox 4.9: Non-identical donor responses to education systems in Burundi and RwandaBurundi and Rwanda are known in French as lesfaux jumeaux — the non-identical twins. Both haveexperienced devastating episodes of violent conflictwhich have left a deep imprint on their educationsystems. One area where they differ is in the levelof support they have received from aid donors inrebuilding those systems.The three months of genocide in Rwanda in 1994left 800,000 people dead and 3 million displaced,many of them in neighbouring countries. Some80% of the country’s children experienced deathin their immediate family and 90% saw deadbodies. In Burundi, the conflict was more protracted.From 1993 to 2005, out of a population of around6 million, 300,000 people were killed and 1.6 millionfled their homes.Both countries emerged from conflict withshattered education systems. When a newgovernment assumed office in Rwanda in July 1994,the Education Ministry had no financial resources,no equipment or supplies, and limited manpower.In Burundi, the near-decade of conflict severelyweakened education planning and financing. By2000, just 40% of the school age population wereattending primary school, according to householdsurvey data. With large numbers of traumatizedreconstruction in humanitarian aid and thecomplexity of the problems facing donors. Food andnutrition are obvious priorities for emergency support.Yet the failure to put in place a viable strategy andadequate finance for education reconstruction maywell have contributed to wider factors that havedestabilized successive peace accords.At one level the aid financing profiles for theDemocratic Republic of the Congo and Liberiareflect a compelling set of recovery imperatives.The problem is not that the international communityinvests too much in security and alleviating hunger.It is that too little is invested in other areas that areno less important to post-conflict reconstruction.Peace, political stability, access to basic servicesand economic recovery cannot be viewed inisolation. In a post-conflict environment, failure inany one area can lead to collapse in others. Whenpeace settlements bring an end to violence but failto restore education systems, the thwarted hopesand ambitions of parents can fuel social tensionschildren, a bitter legacy of mistrust, shortagesof teachers and large financing gaps, bothcountries urgently needed strong donor supportand increased aid.The donor response has been unequal. Over2006–2007, Rwanda received US$20 per primaryschool age child. Burundi received just US$13, eventhough it is lagging behind Rwanda in progresstowards universal primary education, with threetimes as many children out of school.Financing disparities of this magnitude are difficultto square with an independent assessment of need,governance or capacity. Other factors have drivenaid allocations. The scale of the Rwandan genocideand the failure of the international communityto prevent it played a role in eliciting a strong aidresponse — and rightly so. Public pressure on donorsto act was reinforced by graphic media coverageof the genocide. Beyond the humanitarian impulse,many aid donors see Rwanda as a more significantstrategic actor than Burundi in the Great Lakesregion. The point of the comparison is not toquestion the level of aid to Rwanda, which hasachieved extraordinary progress, but to ask whydonors have not supported reconstruction inBurundi more strongly.Source: Obura and Bird (2009).and mistrust of government. Distributing foodto combat hunger without restoring the economicinfrastructure and productive systems that peopleneed for more secure livelihoods can erodeprospects for sustainable recovery. The bottom lineis that security in the broader sense is about morethan the absence of violence and hunger. It is aboutexpanding the real choices open to people andbuilding confidence in the future.Working effectively in conflict-affected statesThere is no ready-made model for working inconflict-affected states. In some cases, peaceprocesses create an opportunity to work withgovernments committed to reconstruction. Inothers, donors work amid ongoing conflict, withthe risk of being seen as a supporter of one side– a risk that has resulted in a growing numberof attacks on aid workers. In still other cases,government unwillingness to participate in peaceprocesses or reconstruction may leave nongovernmentgroups as the only potential partnersfor aid agencies. While the problems are oftendaunting, there are always opportunities to engage.The scale of theRwandan genocideand the failure ofthe internationalcommunity toprevent it playeda role in elicitinga strong aidresponse243