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

0120CHAPTER 4Education for All Global Monitoring ReportIn many cases,tensions betweennational donorpracticesand global FTIrules have stalleddeliverylevel. Local donor groups, engaged in dialoguewith governments over many years, identifyFTI priorities in the context of support forsector plans. In many cases, donor groupshave developed flexible and innovative strategiesfor building national capacity and workingthrough national systems. The applications forFTI financing then go through another set ofprocesses at the global level, with World Bankdisbursement rules weighing heavily in financingdecisions. In many cases, tensions betweennational donor practices and global FTI ruleshave stalled delivery.Weak global leadership. The FTI has notgalvanized high-level financial and politicalsupport, as its narrow donor base and limitedsuccess in mobilizing financial resources show.The steering committee has not set a strategicdirection and has failed to act decisively inresolving problems over disbursement. A newgovernance structure has recently been adoptedbut it is not apparent that it will be able torectify these problems. Beyond the FTI itself,the High-Level Group has proved ineffective insetting an agenda for change. It was mandatedto ‘serve as a lever for political commitment andtechnical and financial resource mobilization’,but its annual meetings have become high-leveltalking shops characterized by long planningcycles, agendas lacking strategic objectivesand wide-ranging, unfocused debate. Eachmeeting has culminated in the adoption of vaguecommuniqués that are long on broad injunctionsto governments and largely devoid of practicalcommitments. The EFA Global Monitoring Report2003/4 issued a harsh verdict on the first twomeetings: ‘Neither the communiqués nor thereports …’, it concluded, ‘have had any visibleinternational impact, either in generating politicalcommitment or in mobilizing the resourcesrequired to achieve EFA’ (UNESCO, 2003, p. 255).That assessment could be extended to all eightHigh-Level Group meetings.Delivering finance:too little and too erraticConfusion has marked the debate over the roleof the Fast Track Initiative in mobilizing additionalfinancing. Some observers – including many donors– argue that FTI endorsement has played animportant indirect role in generating increased aidthrough bilateral donors. Others focus on the directfinancing provided through the Catalytic Fund.While indirect financing is difficult to measure,there is little evidence to support a strong ‘FTIeffect’, and the Catalytic Fund has delivered smallamounts of finance with high transaction costs.Financial leverage of FTI endorsement?Annual reports published by the FTI partnershipclaim that plan endorsement has helped leverageadditional aid (Bermingham, 2009a; FTI Secretariat,2008a). That claim is usually supported byreference to studies looking at aid levels beforeand after FTI endorsement of national plans.The problem is that these studies lend themselvesto selective interpretation. Consider first thewidely cited finding that ‘the early FTI countriesseem to have experienced a greater increase inbasic education commitments’ (FTI Secretariat,2008a, p. 26). This is based on the observationthat countries with plans endorsed in 2002–2004secured a doubling in aid commitments over2000–2006, which is greater than the increasefor non-endorsed countries. It is not clear whythe comparison period begins in 2000 (two yearsbefore the creation of the FTI). Moreover,extending the period to 2007 eliminates thepositive finding (Rawle, 2009).The scope for selectivity can be illustrated byreference to another comparison. In the elevencountries endorsed in 2002 and 2003, the annualrate of increase in aid commitments to basiceducation to 2005 amounted to 4%. This was lessthan half the increase in commitments recordedfor non-FTI low-income countries. Within the FTIgroup, the increase in commitments was unequallydistributed, ranging from annual growth of over80% in Mauritania and Yemen to 10% in BurkinaFaso. Moreover, commitments actually fell inconstant 2007 dollar terms in five FTI-endorsedcountries. This evidence does not point to anegative FTI effect, but it hardly lends weightto the case for a positive effect.Preliminary assessment of the FTI mid-termevaluation concludes that aid data ‘do notconstitute strong evidence that FTI endorsementleads to a surge in aid for basic education’(Cambridge Education et al., 2009, p. 34). Indeed,it was the failure of bilateral donors to scale upsupport for education sufficiently in countrieswith endorsed education plans that prompteda broadening of the Catalytic Fund remit in 2007beyond its initial focus on those lacking a criticalbase of donors.254