people and planet

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information system in sub-Saharan Africa since 1994,
and upgrades have further strengthened its budget
preparation (Diamond and Khemani, 2005; World Bank,
2015c). Information on public expenditure data for
education started being reported regularly in 2004.
Support by international
agencies can facilitate
Open public financial
reporting of existing
management systems data. For example, since
are associated with the 1990s, World Bankled
public expenditure
economic growth
reviews, in partnership
with finance ministries,
often analyse the level
and pattern of public education expenditure and assess
effectiveness and equity.
Since 2009 another World Bank initiative, BOOST, has
compiled public expenditure data from treasury systems
using national budget classification codes in 16 countries,
divided by government level, administrative unit,
economic and functional classification.
Similarly, since 2003, the IIEP, often jointly with the World
Bank, has led country status reports in 22 sub-Saharan
African countries. These in-depth diagnostic tools for
national education systems involve intensive data
collection and provide capacity-building for national teams.
Concern over the timeliness of public education
expenditure information has sometimes led to a
search for alternatives. The assumption has been
that the bottleneck is data processing, rather than
availability of data in the national financial management
system. Government Spending Watch, an initiative
of Development Finance International, a non-profit
organization funded by Oxfam, tracks spending in
education and other sectors using public and semi-public
budget-related documents. However, this information
may lack the quality assurance that an international
agency can provide.
All these efforts serve different purposes and respond
to different needs. However, they are too infrequent to
substitute for missing data (UIS, 2016c). And, as they
do not follow a systematic format, they do not ensure
comparability across countries and are therefore not a
long-term solution to the problem of data gaps.
Following the example of WHO in the health sector,
greater engagement with the IMF and its Government
Finance Statistics could be helpful (Seiferling, 2013).
However, the IMF does not prioritize data collection
in individual sectors. Reform of public financial
management systems thus remains the main answer to
the problem of low financial data availability.
EQUITY IN PUBLIC EXPENDITURE
A review of public expenditure cannot be limited
to quantity but must extend to the three critical
dimensions of quality: efficiency, effectiveness and
equity. This section focuses on equity, as one proposed
thematic indicator is the ‘extent to which explicit
formula-based policies reallocate education resources
to disadvantaged populations’. The objective of equity
can be well served by clear and transparent criteria for
allocating resources that take into account school and
student needs (Levacic, 2008; Fazekas, 2012).
This indicator can be monitored systematically across
countries. For example, a review of European school
financing systems identified differences in the extent to
which formula funding was used, alone or in combination
with other rules, to allocate resources to schools. Five
countries, including Bulgaria, Norway and Spain, used a
funding formula to allocate all resources to schools either
directly or through local authorities. Other countries
used this approach to allocate only staff, operational or
capital resources. Yet others, such as Greece, Hungary
and Portugal, do not use any formula at all (European
Commission/EACEA/Eurydice, 2014).
In its current formulation, however, the indicator is
restrictive. Funding formula mechanisms are only one
of several policy tools that governments can use to
help disadvantaged students and schools overcome
challenges. Moreover, funding formula mechanisms
may be suitable in some countries but not in others,
depending on national context.
What matters is whether countries make sufficient use
of various education financing policy tools to address
equity concerns. Information is limited on the extent to
which they do so. The World Bank’s Systems Approach
for Better Education Results (SABER) has a module on
school financing that includes questions on resources
for students from disadvantaged backgrounds, and a
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CHAPTER 20 | FINANCE