PUBLIC STATEMENTJOINT CIVIL SOCIETY STATEMENT ON THE AFRICAN
DEVELOPMENT BANK AND OTHERS’ REPORT, ASSESSING
PROGRESS IN AFRICA TOWARD THE MILLENNIUM
DEVELOPMENT GOALS
Marrakech, 28th November 2014
The African Development Bank (AfDB), the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), the African Union
Commission (AUC), and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) recently published their annual
report on the progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The civil society
organisations listed in this statement believe that this report makes unsubstantiated and shocking
recommendations for increased private sector involvement in education as a solution to the education anddevelopment challenges faced by countries on the African continent. These recommendations are made despite
evidence showing the risks of private sector involvement in education in relation to equity and quality, which maylead States to breach international standards.
The MDG Report 2014: Assessing Progress in Africa Toward the Millennium Development Goals is an important document
for two reasons. Firstly, it reflects the positions of key organisations charged with finding solutions for realising
economic and social development in Africa. And, secondly, it will influence the debate on the post-2015
development framework. The report is also significant as it may have help to shape the debate for the next
development framework, post 2015. The MDG Report 2014 rightly recognises the progress achieved by several
African countries in expanding access to and completion of education. Importantly, it also highlights some of the
major challenges that many education systems continue to face in Africa, including a shortage of funding,insufficient quality, and inequalities.
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Regrettably, to meet these challenges, the report argues for “the promotion of Science, Technology andInnovation (STI) combined with a greater involvement of the private sector”. On the role of the private sector,
the report states: “Africa must build a vibrant private sector that supports the development of a dynamic primaryeducation system and the acquisition of new skills and capacities by the labour force”.
In realising these recommendations, the report calls for the private sector to provide additional resources for the
expansion and improvement of the quality of educations. It recommends that governments support the
involvement of private actors in education by:-“(i) Providing incentives, access to credit, land and facilities as well as an appropriate supply of infrastructure to support
investments in education;(ii) formulating sound private investment policy aimed at developing school management skills, particularly in countries witha vibrant private sector; and(iii) in weaker performing countries, establishing a liberal and attractive regulatory framework that is conducive to profitable
returns on investment while setting in place quality control mechanisms to monitor primary education outcomes”

These recommendations are effectively calling on States to dramatically increase private sector involvement ineducation. Moreover, the type of private sector actors that the report authors report would like to attract is not
only charities, communities or Diasporas, but investors and entrepreneurs – so-called “edu-preneurs” - who canmake “profitable returns on investment”.
This is, without doubt, a strong and unprecedented move towards the support of private education by the AfDB,
the UNDP, the ECA and the AUC. This is a very worrying and regrettable evolution and one that runs counter tothe internal logic of the report. More importantly, these recommendations also go against the realisation of humanrights principles guaranteed in international law.

Against its own findings
The report recognises that two education policies have been particularly effective in expanding educational accessand participation: the elimination of fees and long-term State investments in education. However, against all logic,
the report’s call for support of private actors could undermine the achievements in education that these twopolicies allowed to bring about.
The importance of the elimination of fees

The report acknowledges that school fees and other education costs are a major barrier to access to education.
For instance, it highlights that in Liberia, “although primary education is free and compulsory, the cost of learningmaterials makes schooling unaffordable for some communities”. Conversely, Rwanda’s successful increase of its
enrolment ratio in primary education is “a result of the fee-free education for the first nine years of basic
schooling, which was later extended to the first 12 years”. The positive impact on school participation as a resultof the elimination of user fees in education has been well documented. Most of the dramatic increases in primaryschool enrolment in Africa since 2000 came about after the elimination of fees and the report highlights theparticular positive effect on girls’ overall enrolment as a result of the removal of fees. Based on the report’s own
findings, it appears to be completely counter-productive to promote private education, which is largely fee-paying,and in particular the kind of private investment which is “conducive to profitable returns on investment”.


The importance of public investment

The report notes that countries such as Rwanda, Tunisia, Tanzania, Sao Tome and Principe, Egypt, Algeria,
Malawi, and Zambia have made progress on quality of education through “long–term, consistent investment inprimary education”. In particular, Rwanda’s “commitment to continuous and increased investment in education
infrastructure and the number of qualified teachers has also been instrumental”. The report further highlights thatsignificant improvements in the level of educational participation “have been made possible through sustainablepublic investment”. Thus, it is surprising that the report does not call for increased sustainable and long-term
investments in education by, for example, calling on governments to commit 20% of their budgets or 6% of GDP
to education as widely accepted benchmarks of good practice. Instead, it recommends private investments in2

education without providing evidence as to the positive and sustained impact of such policies, and without
considering their impacts on the realisation of the right to education, and on inequality and discrimination.

Against international law and shared principles
The MDG Report 2014’s promotion of privatisation in education is also a move against all internationally accepted
principles on education and potentially in violation of international law. In addition to international declarations
and statements, all States in Africa have ratified at least one of the key international conventions protecting theright to education, whether the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, the International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, or the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Most African States have
ratified the three conventions. All African States are thus legally bound to guarantee the realisation of the right toeducation, and the international agencies operating in the region, such as the AfDB and the UNDP, must obey theprinciples binding their members.
Based on the wealth of research and evidence available on private education, the privatisation in education called
for by the report could be in breach of the following internationally recognised principles:State obligation to provide quality education

Under international law, it is a core obligation of States to directly provide quality education for all. States must, asa matter of priority, build an efficient system of schools. Pushing States to use their scarce resources to support
private providers of education through, e.g., tax incentive for private providers of education, is thus likely to be amove away from this principle. The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to education (UNSR education)emphasised that “under no circumstances should a State provide financial support to a private provider ofeducation”.
International standards clearly state that although private providers of education should, and must be allowed,
private schools and investors should play a complementary role. However, research shows that private investment
in education generally replaces public education, and the UNSR education warned in his most recent report that“soon, it may not be an exaggeration to say that privatization is supplanting public education instead ofsupplementing it”, in violation of international standards.


Equality of opportunities and non-discrimination:

Education policies should promote non-discrimination and equality of opportunity, rather than reinforce
segregation and inequalities. As the MDG Report 2014 acknowledges, many African countries are “still facing
schooling gaps between the poorest and the richest households” and there is a need to “support governments thathave not yet achieved UPE [universal primary education] to better reach the most deprived children”. The African
Union, through the Second Decade of Education (2006-2015) plan of action, reiterated the need to ensure equity.
These principles are also strongly protected under international law.
However, increased private sector participation in education is a strong driver of segregation and inequalities ofopportunities. Recent reports published on privatisation in education in Morocco, Ghana, Uganda, and Chile
clearly document these effects. For instance, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) stated in areport in October that, in Morocco, “private education is developing very quickly, especially at primary level, without thenecessary supervision regarding the conditions of enrolment and the quality of education provided, which has led to the reinforcement ofinequalities in the enjoyment of the right to education”.
A recent report submitted to the UN Committee on the elimination of discrimination against women (CEDAW)
also makes clear that privatisation in education is detrimental to girls’ access to and participation in education:
when the cost of education increases, parents generally give priority to boys. There is clear evidence that, as the
UNSR education put it, privatisation “flies in the face of prohibited grounds of discrimination based, notably, on‘social origin’, ‘economic condition’, ‘birth’ or ‘property’ in international human rights conventions”.
Quality of education and regulation
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The MDG Report 2014 justifies a call for increased private sector participation in education on the grounds that it
could help improve quality. This is a sweeping statement based on no evidence.
International standards take a broad understanding of quality, which includes learning to know, learning to do,learning to live together, and learning to be. Crucial factors are adequate teachers’ qualifications and training anddecent working conditions. This is recognised by the report in its call for “improving teachers’ professional
development” and the detrimental impact on quality of recruiting unqualified teachers. Private investment ineducation is not the solution to these challenges. In many countries, private schools tend to employ unqualified
and insufficiently trained teachers. In Ghana, for example, only 9.2% of primary level teachers are trained in theprivate sector compared to 69.4% in public schools.
The example of Morocco, moreover, shows that private investments in education do not lead to investments inquality. After almost 15 years of a rapid increase in private investment in education in the country, private schools
have failed to train teachers, but rely extensively on teachers from the public sector, thereby weakening it.
Education is a public goodAs the CRC recently recalled, it is clear that education is a public good, which must thus be protected against
marketisation and commodification. States equally emphasised a few months ago in the so-called Muscat
agreement, “through governments, the state is the custodian of quality education as a public good”. In spite ofthis, the MDG Report 2014 explicitly calls for a commercialisation of the education sector that “is conducive to
profitable returns on investment” for edu-preneurs. Profit making in education, especially where taking advantageof the aspirations of the poorest parents for a better life, is unacceptable. Whereas education is already highly
resource constrained, it is inexplicable and intolerable that organisations such as the AfDB and the UNDP
support an additional waste of resources through profit making in education.

Moving forward
A major shortcoming of the MDG Report 2014 is to conclude that quality education is expensive and that therefore
governments cannot provide it alone. There are, in fact, many other sources of funding, some of which the reportauthors highlight in other sections:---

States need to adequately mobilise domestic resources, in particular through taxation. This is strongly
acknowledged in the report that calls, amongst other things, for strengthening tax enforcement
capabilities, developing progressive tax regimes, losing loopholes that facilitate licit and illicit financial
outflows.
States need to prioritise the realisation of the right to education – and other economic and social rights –in their budgeting. According to international law, they must use the maximum of their available
resources for the realisation of economic and social rights. This is still far from being the case across thecontinent, such as in Uganda.
Corruption is a key source of loss of resources – for instance, US$21 million was lost to corruption in
Nigeria over two years (2005-2006).
Richer countries must be called to fulfil their responsibility and obligation to provide financial andtechnical support for the realisation of economic and social rights, in line with their international
obligations to support international assistance and co-operation. Some development aid actors, such as
the UK development agencies, DfID and the World Bank, are supporting fee-charging, profit-making
private school companies in Africa. This is another waste of resources, not addressed by the report.

These are the real funding issues in Africa. Research and experience is unequivocal in showing that it is only
through a strong, quality, public education system that societies can be just and prosperous. The report does notgive any evidence to support its endorsement of private investment in education and, in fact, provides evidence
that strong and sustained government investment is what is needed.

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We therefore solemnly demand that the AfDB, the ECA, the AUC and the UNDP immediately withdraw
the report, so as to reconsider the recommendations in support of privatisation in education and makealternative recommendations in line with their own and their member States’ human rights obligations.

Material
The report MDG Report 2014: Assessing Progress in Africa Toward the Millennium Development Goals is available on
http://www.afdb.org/en/knowledge/publications/millennium-development-goals-mdgs-report/
The last report of the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to education is available on http://www.right-toeducation.org/sites/right-to-education.org/files/resourceattachments/UNSR_Report_to_UNGA_Privatisation_2014.pdf
The research on the impact of privatisation on the right to education is available on http://globalinitiativeescr.org/advocacy/privatization-in-education-research-initiative/

Signatory organisations
Submitted by the African Network Campaign on Education for All (ANCEFA), Education International (EI),
ActionAid, and the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (GI-ESCR).
This statement has also been endorsed by the following organisations:
1. Alliance2015
2. Alphabétisation et Développement (Alpha Dev)
3. ASO-EPT Niger
4. Association Nationale pour l’Alphébétisation, Senegal (ANAFA)
5. Burundi Coalition for Education For All
6. Centre for Social Impact Studies (CeSIS)
7. Civil Society Action Coalition on Education for All
8. Civil Society Action Coalition on Education for All (CSACEFA)
9. Civil Society Education Coalition, Malawi (CSEC),
10. Coalition des Organisations en Synergie pour la Défense de l'Education Publique, Senegal (COSYDEP)
11. Coalition des organisations Mauritaniennes pour l'Education (COMEDUC)
12. Coalition Marocaine pour l’Education Pour tous (CMEPT)
13. Coalition National EPT-Burkina-Faso
14. Collectif National de l’Education Alternative et Populaire, Senegal (CNEAP)
15. Committee for Peace and Development Advocacy (COPDA) – Liberia
16. Confédération des syndicats autonomes, Senegal (CSA)
17. Education Coalition of South Africa, South Africa(ECSA)
18. Education For All Network, The Gambia
19. Equal Education Law Centre, South Africa (EELC)
20. EqualEducation, South Africa
21. Fédération Nationale des Associations de Parents d’Elèves au Maroc (FNAPEM)
22. Fédération Nationale des Associations de Parents d’Eleves et d’Edudiants, Senegal (FENAPES)
23. Foundation For Environmental Right, Advocacy & Development, Nigeria (FENRAD)
24. Foundation for the Conservation of the Earth (FOCONE)
25. Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition (GNECC)
26. Global Campaign for Education (GCE)
27. Global Rights, Nigeria
28. IBIS
29. Initiative for Social and Economic Rights (ISER)
30. Jamaa Resource Initiatives, Kenya531. Kosovo Civil Society Consortium for Sustainable Development (KOSID)
32. Lumière Synergie pour le Développement
33. Mouvement Anfass Démocratique, Morocco
34. Oxfam
35. Peace Point Action (PPA)
36. Privatisation in Education Research Initiative (PERI)
37. Public Interest Law Center, Chad (PILC)
38. RESULTS
39. Right to Education Forum, India
40. Section27, South Africa
41. Syndicat Unique et Démocratique du Sénégal (SUDES)
42. Right to Education Project (RTE)
43. Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education (ASPBAE)
44. Forum for Education NGO’s in Uganda (FENU)
45. Argentinian Campaign for the Right to Education (CADE
46. Buliisa Initiative for Rural Development organisation (BIRUDO)
47. Cameroon Education for All Network (CEFAN)
48. Zambia National Education Coalition
49. Basic Education Network Ethiopia
50. Botswana Coalition for Education for All
51. Tanzania Education Network/Mtandao wa Elimu Tanzania (TEN/MET)
52. Arab Campaign for Education for All (ACEA)
53. Global Network for Good Governance(GNGG Cameroon)
54. Groupe Pivot Education de Base, Mali
55. Centre du Commerce International pour le Développement, CECIDE, Guinée (CECIDE)
56. Consulenti, orientatori, formatori in rete, Italia (Cofir)6