EDUCATIONAID WATCH
2015

Acknowledgements
The country profiles in this report were prepared in by GCE national member coalitions
which are members of the Global Campaign for Education (GCE), in collaboration withthe report authors and editors.

Australia Jo Walker with inputs by
Bernie Lovegrove, Orlando Forbes, andCamilla Ryberg

Norway GCE Network Norway: Øygunn
Sundsbo Brynildsen and Astrid Thomassen,with input by Kjersti Mowé

Canada Natalie Poulson and Yona Nestel

Republic of Korea Re-shaping Development
Institute (ReDI): HONG, Moon Suk, withsupport from Korea Civil Society Forumon International Development Cooperation(KoFID)

Denmark Education Network under Global
Fokus (GCE DK): Anne Sørensen and Helle
Gudmandsen, with help from Lars Koch,
Jo Walker and Marianne Victor Hansen
France Réseau Français de la Campagne
Mondiale pour L’Education : Hélène Ferrer
and Carole Coupez

Germany Oxfam Germany and Globale
Bildungskampagne: Maren Jesaitis andBarbara Fuerst

Ireland The Irish GCE Coalition: Michael
Doorly, Moira Leydon and Jo Walker

Italy Italian GCE Coalition (CGE-IT):

Spain Campaña Mundial por la Educación
España: Graciela Rico Pérez

United Kingdom GCE UK: Luke Tredget
with support from Heather Saunders andAletheia Bligh Flower

United States GCE-US: Jack Holtgreive,
Ed Gragert, Brian Callahan and Tony Baker

European Union Jo Walker andAnne Sørensen.

Anna Rita De Bellis and Jo Walker

Global Partnership for Education Jo Walker

Japan Japan NGO Network for Education:

World Bank Tony Baker and Jo Walker

Takafumi Miyake

Netherlands GCE Netherlands: Jeanne Roefs
and Anneloes van Kuijk

Report coordination and editing, and introduction and global aid trends sections, weredelivered by Jo Walker, Caroline Pearce, Shaharazad Abuel-Ealeh and Anjela Taneja.
The data compilation for this report was researched by Jo Walker and Maria Holloway
from Development Finance International.
GCE would like to thank Asma Zubairi from the Education for All Global Monitoring
Report for advice on data analysis and statistics use.
This report was written and published with the support of IBIS.
© Global Campaign for Education 2015. All rights reserved.
25 Sturdee Avenue
Rosebank
Johannesburg 2132
South Africa

www.campaignforeducation.org
Cover image: Primary school children in Esteli, Nicaragua© Kjersti Mowé

EDUCATIONAID WATCH
2015

Glossary
AU$		
Australian Dollars
AusAID		
Australian Agency for International Development
BMZ		
Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development 				(Germany)
CA$		
Canadian Dollar
CRS		
Creditor Reporting System of the OECD
CSEF		
Civil Society Education Fund
CSOs		
Civil Society Organisations
DAC		
Development Assistance Committee of the OECDDANIDA
Danish Development Department
DFATD		Canadian Department for Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
DfID		UK Department for International Development
DKK		
Danish KronerEC		European Commission
ECD		
Early Childhood Development
ECCE		
Early Childhood Care and Education
EFA 		
Education for All
EU		European UnionFTI		EFA Fast Track Initiative
FTT		
Financial Transaction Tax
FY		
Fiscal Year
GCE		
Global Campaign for Education
GEFI		UN Secretary-General’s Global Education First Initiative
GIZ		
German International Cooperation
GMR		
EFA Global Monitoring Report
GNI		
Gross National Income
GPE 		
Global Partnership for Education
GSW 		
Government Spending Watch
IDA 		
International Development Association of the World Bank
KOICA		Korea International Cooperation Agency
LEG 		
Local Education GroupLIC		
Low Income Countries
MDGs		
Millennium Development Goals
MIC		
Middle Income Countries
MoFA		
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan
NGO 		
Non-Governmental Organisation
ODA 		
Official Development AssistanceOECD 		Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
SDGs 		Sustainable Development Goals
SRHR		
Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights
UIS 		UNESCO Institute for Statistics
UNESCO
United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization
UNSG		
United Nations Secretary General
UPE 		
Universal Primary Education
USAID		United States Agency for International Development

2

Global Campaign for Education

Contents
Introduction to Education Aid Watch 2015 – page 4
1

Aid trends –page 6

2Country profiles – page 13

3

Multilateral profiles – page 51

Annex 1: Notes on definition and data sources – page 58
Annex 2: Global ranking tables – page 60

Education Aid Watch 20153

Introduction to Education
Aid Watch 2015
In 2000, the world’s governments,
alongside civil society, UN agencies andothers in the education community,committed to achieving the six Education
For All (EFA) goals set out in the Dakar
Framework for Action. In the same year,
UN member states committed to theMillennium Development Goals, two of
which pledged to ensure that every childwould receive a full primary education by
2015, and that there would be parity inaccess to education for girls and boys.
1

However, the commitments did not only encompass the goals: theyalso discussed the partnership and financing necessary to achieve them.
The Dakar Framework for Action, for example, stated that “We affirm
that no countries seriously committed to education for all will be thwarted
in their achievement of this goal by a lack of resources.” The Millennium
Development Goals included – as the eighth and final goal –a commitment to a “global partnership for development”, which embraced
aid for development and included a pledge to “address the special needsof least developed countries”.
Taken together, these two commitments encompassed a clear
pledge to provide development assistance to achieve the EFA goals andthe MDGs, in the areas and in the countries where it was most needed– that is, for basic education, in countries with the greatest needs, andthe fewest available resources.
In 2015, it is clear that – despite some significant progress in someareas – neither the EFA goals nor the MDGs have been achieved;
124 million children and young people still remain out-of-school,
millions more are in school but not receiving a real education, 781
million adults cannot read and write, and it is those from the mostmarginalised backgrounds who are most likely to be left behind.2

1. The Education for All (EFA) goals are six internationally agreed education goals
which aim to meet the learning needs of all children, youth and adults by 2015.
An overview of the goals is available here: www.unesco.org/new/en/education/
themes/leading-the-international-agenda/education-for-all/efa-goals/. The
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) aim to ensure all children are in primaryschool by 2015; more information is available here: www.un.org/millenniumgoals/

education.shtml

2. Global Campaign for Education Time to Get it Right: Lessons from EFA and the
MDGs for Education 2016-2030 , 2015 http://campaignforeducation.org/docs/
post2015/GCE_EFA_REPORT_MAY_2015_EN_WEB.pdf

4

Global Campaign for Education

This report documents a failure to provide the pledged donor
support – a neglect by many rich countries of their responsibilities
and commitments, which is a key factor in explaining the failure toachieve the EFA goals and the MDGs. It is the world’s poorest andmost excluded children, young people and adults who have felt – andare still feeling – the impact. While domestic financing for education
is and must be the most important source of funds in building
and sustaining public education systems that truly provide quality
education for all, it is nevertheless the case that in countries of greatest
need – those with least resources, biggest challenges, or suffering fromconflict, disaster or instability – development assistance remains crucial.
This report shows that while a few donors have stepped up to provide
significant and good quality aid, others have neglected their pledge,
leading to an overall picture of wholly inadequate support for thegoals that the whole world agreed 15 years ago.

About this report
This Global Campaign for Education (GCE) report analyses theperformance of a number of donors on aid to education in the
MDG-EFA period (with data covering the period 2002-2013) –and especially the last few years – with a particular focus on basic
education. It includes individual profiles of 14 bilateral donor
countries – Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland,
Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Republic of Korea, Spain, UK
and USA – which encompass the major bilateral donors, and thosedonor countries where national GCE coalitions are most active – aswell as the European Union (EU), the World Bank, and the Global
Partnership for Education (GPE). Together these donors make up
around 80% of all annual aid to education.3 Given their collective
significance to education, the decisions and spending of thesecountries have a significant impact on global trends.
The first section also provides a global overview of key trends inaid to education, with a focus on:•••

Aid to education as a whole, including in light of overall aid trends
Aid to different levels of education – basic, secondary, andpost-secondary
Aid to least-developed countries and those experiencing
humanitarian crises.

The report considers the shifts in aid that will be needed tomeet the demands of the new post-2015 agenda, and particularly
the proposed Sustainable Development Goal 4: “Ensure inclusive
and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning
opportunities for all”, making clear recommendations to donor
governments and agencies.

BOX 1: Why should donors allocate 20% of aid to
education and 10% of aid to basic education?
GCE has long called for governments to allocate 20% of their
total national budgets, and an amount equivalent to at least 6%
of GDP, to education. The Incheon Declaration, ‘Education
2030: Towards inclusive and equitable quality education andlifelong learning for all’, also endorsed spending at such levels.
We believe that donors should match this commitment, by
providing 20% of all their aid to education. (In this context,
20% of general budget support can be understood as acontribution to education.)
Moreover, there is a broad acceptance that governments
need to spend at least half of their education budgets on basic
education, which, given a 20% allocation to education overall,would amount to 10% of the overall government budget being
spent on basic education. Many countries seem to be making
progress towards reaching this target. GCE again believes thata similar standard must apply to international donors – with atarget of 10% of their ODA budgets being committed to basic
education. In calculating whether donors are reaching this, we
use the GMR definition of basic education, which includes all
early childhood, primary and adult basic education, as well as
half of spending coded as ‘level unspecified’ and 10% of generalbudget support to recipient governments. For secondary
education and post-secondary education we add in 25% of ‘level
unspecified’ and 5% of general budget support each (see Annex
1 for more information). This is the methodology used by the
UNESCO EFA Global Monitoring Report.

3. Based on DAC totals.

Education Aid Watch 2015

5

1

AID TRENDS

4. UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), Fact Sheet No 25, June 2015 www.uis.
unesco.org/Education/Documents/fs-25-out-of-school-children-en.pdf
5. Education for All Global Monitoring Report, Policy Paper 13: Aid reductions
threaten education goals, June 2014.
6. Calculated using OECD Creditor Reporting System (CRS) database using datafor disbursements.

6

Global Campaign for Education

FIGURE 1: Aid disbursements to education, all donors,
2002–2013. US$ millions (US$ constant 2013)
16,00014,00012,00010,000
8,000
6,000
4,000

12

20

20

11

0

13

2,000
20

Over the whole of the MDG-EFA period, across all donors, an averageof 8.6% of all development assistance went to education – far below
what is needed, and falling far short of the priority that governments
and citizens themselves place on education. While this masks
considerable variation between countries, no donor consistently met
the target to allocate 20% of total aid to education.
Most worryingly, after some slow but steady (albeit insufficient)
growth in aid to education for most of the MDG-EFA period, it
actually fell – by 10% – between 2010 and 2012. UNESCO and the
EFA Global Monitoring Report highlighted the impact of this falling
aid – especially for basic education in low-income countries – onachieving EFA goals, the MDGs and future goals, and pointed to astagnation in progress towards getting all children in school.4,5 Suchcuts in aid came just as low-income countries should have been
accelerating efforts to reach EFA and the education MDGs. Put simply,
during the final leg of the race to ensure every child could completea primary education, partner countries were let down by donors,
while many struggled to continue to do their part (see Box 2).
Since then, levels of aid to education have recovered somewhat,with the total level of aid to education up 6% in 2013 compared to2012. While this is comparatively good news, there are still grounds
to be cautious with optimism: the recovery has been only partial, andeducation aid in absolute terms was still 3% lower in 2013 than in
2010. Moreover, the increases seem to be to a side-effect of overall
recovery in aid levels, rather than any renewed vigour by donors insupport of education. Aid to education in fact appears to be risingmore slowing than aid overall, or aid to other sectors: total ODA
disbursements rose by 9% from 2012-2013, while aid to education rose
by 6%.6 This suggests that donors are continuing to give education alower priority within their aid budgets.
Confirming this trend of less focus on education by donors asa whole, Figure 2 shows that education aid as a share of total ODA
has fallen from 9.7% in 2009 to 8.1% in 2013. Over the MDG-EFA
period as a whole, education has never reached 10% of overall ODA
allocations in any one year, and the share of ODA going to education
is now back to approximately 2002 levels. That is, despite clear
evidence that citizens place “a good education” as their top priority– as in the huge United Nations My World 2015 survey, for example;
despite donor commitments to ensure lack of funding is not a barrier

to every child and adult receiving at least a basic education; anddespite clear indications that funding has not been sufficient, donors
as a whole have failed to rise to the challenge, or show any increase of
ambition on education financing over the last 15 years.

20
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10

Aid to education as a wholeis insufficientMoreover, when looking behind the aggregate figures, it becomes
clear that these slight increases in education aid since 2012 are dueto the contributions of just a few donors – including the UK, theWorld Bank, Norway, Japan and Ireland – who are either expanding
overall aid programmes or, in some cases, strengthening the focus on
education. Others, however – such as the EU, Spain, Canada, Germany
and the Netherlands7 – are clearly de-prioritising aid to education.
These trends are discussed in more detail in the relevant profiles.
Overall, it is clear that education aid over the MDG-EFA period
fell far short of what was needed to meet the goals. Moreover, thelatest trends reveal limited progress based on the efforts of just a
handful of donors – and suggest that future aid as a whole may falleven further short of what is needed to achieve the new post-2015
education goal and targets that the world is agreeing this year.

7. Some countries, such as the Netherlands, are reducing their contributions as partof a clear strategy and policy shift away from education; others (such as the EU) are
seeing reductions in spite of continued policy support and commitments to education. Specific information is included in the relevant profiles.

FIGURE 2: Aid disbursements as % total ODA.
All donors, 2002–2013

FIGURE 3: Share of education aid to basic education.
All donors, 2002–2013

12%

45%
8.4%

8.1%

41%

42%

40%
37%

35%
30%

6.2%

25%

6%

20%

4%

15%
10%

2%

20

11
20

12

20

13

5%

0

20
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10

42%

Basic education: too little
donor support
If we care about pro-poor education spending, then it is crucial toexamine not simply aid to education as a whole, but aid to basic
education – pre-primary, primary and basic adult education –specifically. Given the importance of building the foundations foreducation, the overall content of the EFA goals, and the fact thatthe education MDGs focused heavily on primary education, basic
education should have been a major focus of donor support in the
MDG-EFA period.Yet trends in aid to basic are even more worrying
than for education as whole: the fall in aid to basic education from2010 to 2012 was even deeper than for education overall, and therecovery since then has been even weaker.
This reflects the cuts – sometimes drastic – in support for basic
education by a number of individual donors in recent years. Of thebilateral donors profiled in this report, all but four have cut aid to basic
education since 2012. Norway has maintained very high levels of aid
to basic education over a considerable period, while the Republic ofKorea, Japan and UK have made increases recently; Japan has initiated avery welcome increase since 2012, albeit from low starting levels.
Many other countries, however, have cut their aid to basic
education. While for some (such as Spain), this is because of overall
cuts in aid, a number of others are making a clear shift away fromeducation and basic education within overall aid budgets: this isevident, for example, in France or – most drastically – the Netherlands.
This has created a situation where, in aggregate, the proportion of
education aid now going to basic education is lower than at any point
during the MDG-EFA period. At the start of this period, from 2002 to
2003, aid to basic education dropped from 44% to 38% of all educationaid, before slowly working its way back up to 2002 levels by 2010;
since then it has dropped even lower than previously. In 2013, just 37%
of all aid to education went to basic education – the lowest level over
the whole of the MDG-EFA period.
Aid to basic education as a percentage of total ODA (to all sectors)
has varied somewhat over the total MDG-EFA period, but it has been
dropping steadily since 2009, and – again – is now lower than at thestart of the period in 2003. It is notable that even as the absolute levelof aid to basic education recovered slightly from 2012 to 2013, theshare of total aid allocated to basic education fell further.

0

12

20

13

7.5%

8.7%

40%

37%

44%

20

8.8%

9.1%

38%

43%

11

8.0%

40%

9.7%

43%

20

8%

9.9%

9.4%

43%

20
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10

9.6%

10%

44%

The fact is that many donors simply have not prioritised basic
education sufficiently during the MDG-EFA period – and, againstthat backdrop, many are reducing their support. Germany, Italy, France
and Japan are some of the bilateral donors that have devoted the least
attention to basic education (although Japan is now increasing its basic
education focus). While basic education takes a very large share of the
USA’s education budget, overall there is a lack of focus on education.
France, in contrast, gives a considerable proportion to education – butvery little of that goes to basic education.
Basic education has had some important donor champions over
the MDG-EFA period. The UK, Norway, Netherlands and Ireland
have all shown strong commitment to basic education. Unfortunately,while this is continuing for the UK and Norway, both the Netherlands
and Ireland are reducing their focus on basic education. The needs andthe gaps in this sector are such that the loss of even a small number ofdonor champions strikes a serious blow, and other donors must step up.
Moreover, as these donors are each withdrawing support forbasic education, the impact on individual partner countries can besevere. There is little evidence of the reductions in education aid
being coordinated between donors, or even of donors having fullunderstanding of the impact on partner countries. One 2013 study
noted that in interviews with multilateral donor staff, there was often
an assumption that other donors are already active in basic education
when making decisions on reducing spending;8 bilateral agencies havemade the same claim in response to civil society concerns in certain
countries.9 This raises the worrying possibility that all donors think‘someone else’ is filling the gaps in basic education.
Some European donors, for example, as they shrink their bilateralcontributions to basic education, are pointing to the role of the EU
and other multilaterals in filling the gap. But this is not borne out by
the evidence; on the contrary, the major multilaterals – including the
EU – are now providing a shrinking share of aid to basic education:
the EU provided 10% of all aid to basic education in 2010, but by
2013, this was just 7%. The World Bank, meanwhile, has gone fromproviding close to a quarter of all aid to basic education at the start of
the MDG period, to just 13% in 2013. GPE resources and spending
are growing, and have a welcome focus on basic and secondary
8. Based on interviews carried out in: Brookings Institution and UNESCO, Financing

for Global Education: Opportunities for Multilateral Action: A report prepared for the UN
Special Envoy for Global Education for the High-level Roundtable on Learning for All:
Coordinating the Financing and Delivery of Education, Washington DC/Paris, 2013
9. Interviews with a range of GCE national coalitions in DAC countries.

Education Aid Watch 20157

rather than post-secondary education – but are not expanding at thelevel required.
As a result of this overall – and poorly coordinated – trend towards
reducing support for education, particularly basic education, a numberof partner countries have seen uncoordinated and simultaneous donor
reductions, or even outright withdrawal, in the last three to four years.
In Burkina Faso, Cambodia and Nicaragua, five donors providing asignificant share of total basic education aid have withdrawn from theeducation sector over the last five years.10 The withdrawal of a just a
couple of key donors - the Netherlands and Canada, for example –from this sector has cut donor support to basic education by one third
to more than half for some countries.
These trends towards de-prioritisation of basic education are
extremely worrying in a context in which 58 million children
worldwide are still out of primary school, and tens of millions of
those in school are not getting even the most basic education, suchas learning to read and write. Over the whole of the MDG-EFA
period, aid to basic education amounted to just 3.6% of all ODA,
across all donors – well below the 10% that was required. The impact
for individual countries – and particularly for the educational and life
opportunities for children, young people, and adult learners in thosecountries – is devastating.

BOX 2: How have developing countries been doing inmeeting their own targets?
The Incheon Declaration calls on governments to spend at least
15 to 20% of their budgets, and an amount equivalent to atleast 4 to 6% of GDP, on education. GCE’s position is that theemphasis must be on the upper end of these ranges, that in somecases countries will need to exceed these spending levels, andthat no country should fall short of them.
There are some welcome signs of progress towards thesetargets. Government Spending Watch recently analysed budget
data from 66 low- and lower-middle -income countries, whichshowed that, while only a handful are meeting the 20% and 6%
targets, more than half have been expanding education spending
since 2012. The 2015 EFA GMR estimated that 39 countries are
currently spending 6% or more of GNP on education, comparedto just 18 at the start of the MDGs.11 Some individual countries– including Ghana, Benin, Ethiopia and Moldova – are making
particularly significant increases. But this progress on domestic
financing will not be enough – particularly for the poorest
countries – unless donors revitalise their flagging commitments
to education.

10. P. Abetti, S. Beardmore, C. Tapp, and R. Winthrop, Prospects for Bilateral Aid to
Basic Education Put Students at Risk. Fast Track Initiativem Washington DC, 2011.
11. It should be noted that, however, there was less data available in 1999: see
The Education for All Global Monitoring Report: Education For All 2000-2015:
achievements and challenges, UNESCO, 2015. https://en.unesco.org/gem-report/

report/2015/education-all-2000-2015-achievements-and-challenges#sthash.
TMs2f52C.dpuf , http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0023/002325/232565e.
pdf

8 Global Campaign for Education

Secondary education: a growing
priority, but with little donor support
FIGURE 4: Education aid by level. All donors, 2013

Basic 40%

Postsecondary
39%

Secondary 21%

While financing for basic education has been a major needduring the MDG-EFA period – in light of the needs, gaps, and EFA
and MDG promises – it is important that secondary education also
receives sufficient financing. The proposed new post-2015 education
framework – as set out in SDG 4 – includes a commitment to 12 yearsof free, public, quality education for all, of which at least nine years
should be compulsory. This will not be possible without significant
support from donor aid.

“Across low and lower middle income
countries, donor aid for pre-primary,primary and secondary education willneed to increase by at least six times.”
EFA Global Monitoring Report Policy Brief, 201512
It would be a mistake, however, to imagine that low and lessening
donor focus on basic education is accounted for by significant support
for investment in secondary education. Overall aid to secondary
education has seen slow and steady growth over the MDG-EFA
period, yet the overall level is still far too low. Despite growing needs
for secondary education (as more children have passed throughprimary education in recent years) there has not been a scale-up of
aid to meet this. On the contrary, after some improvements in theearly part of the MDG-EFA period, aid to secondary education as ashare of total ODA has remained broadly stable (at an average of 1.6%)
since 2007.
There is a need for increased contributions to secondary education,
and also for more detailed monitoring data, including distinguishing
between disbursements to lower- and upper-secondary education.
At present, only a few donors – such as Korea and the WorldBank – appear even to be approaching the kinds of increases in aid
to secondary education that will be necessary to realise post-2015
commitments on secondary education.
Meanwhile, far too many donors are still focusing far too muchon post-secondary education at the expense of basic and secondary

12. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0023/002326/232654E.pdf

education. Support to post-secondary levels could play an importantrole in supporting capacity development in recipient countries, throughstrengthening national higher educational systems, promoting access oflower-income or excluded students to further education, or providing
support for high quality teacher training. But, in practice, huge
proportions of aid are spent on supporting foreign students coming tostudy within donor countries.13 In 2013 as much as a quarter of direct
aid for education, and over 70% of the education aid for post-secondary
education, was spent in donor countries supporting foreign students tostudy there. Post-secondary education accounts for around three quartersof all French and German aid to education, for example, and funding for
scholarships and student costs in their countries is a massive proportionof this: on average, over 60% of each of their education aid budgets overthe last 7 years. Such spending tends to support better-off students, anddoes not reach developing countries or support them in improving thequality of their education systems. It also carries the risk of promoting
brain drain – with students supported through scholarships failing toreturn to their parent country, depriving the developing country of any
positive impact.14
While higher education systems certainly also need support,
focusing aid on higher levels of education is not pro-poor and
can increase inequity. Children from low-income families in mostdeveloping countries rarely make it through to post-secondary
education, meaning they do not benefit at all from such spending:in Ethiopia, for example, fewer than 1% of children in the poorest
quintile, and only 2% of the middle-income quintile, complete uppersecondary education. In Malawi only 5% of the lowest quintile makes
it to lower secondary and 12% of the middle quintile. Significant
assistance to get poor children through basic and secondary educationis still needed before there is any chance of most of them benefitingfrom post-secondary education. Gross enrolment in tertiary educationin the developing world is 26.68% – a figure that drops all the way
down to 8.55% in sub-Saharan Africa.15 And yet, remarkably, in 2013,
overall aid to post-secondary was at the same level as aid to basic
education, while secondary education received only 21% of all aid,
nearly half the percentage allocated to post-secondary.

Where is education aid going?
If donor aid to education over the last 15 years was to be genuinely
in service to the commitments agreed in 2000 – that education for all
would be achieved, and that ‘lack of resources’ would not constitute abarrier to achieving these goals – then donors have had a responsibility
to ensure that aid flows to the poorest countries, as well as those withthe greatest gaps between needs and resources. Available data suggests,
however, that this is not the case.16
There is some positive news, in that the share of aid to basic
education that has been directed to least developed countries (LDCs)
has risen in recent years – from just 39% in 2005, to 45% in 2010, up
to 58% in 2013. However, given a backdrop of overall falling aid levels
to basic education, this has not led to a significant increase in resources.
On the contrary, aid to basic education in low-income countries in2013 was still significantly lower than in 2010. And LDCs are still
getting a minority share of overall aid to education – just 32% of total
education aid in 2013, a level that has been fairly steady throughout
the MDG-EFA period.
A number of lower-middle-income countries also have significant
needs and gaps in financing education, particularly those with huge
out-of-school populations, or massive gaps in post-primary provision.
But there has been an alarming drop in aid to lower-middle income
countries over the last few years, with a 15% fall from 2009 to 2013.
According to the EFA Global Monitoring Report, recent reductionsin education aid to lower-middle income countries appear to belargely driven by heavy falls in disbursements in aid to basic education
to India and Pakistan17 – two countries with massive out-of-school
populations. Upper-middle-income countries, on the other hand,
have been consistently receiving around one quarter of education aid
throughout the MDG-EFA period (22% in 2013, for example).

FIGURE 6: Aid to education expenditure by country
income group. All donors 2002–2013, US$ millions (US$,constant 2013)
5,000

FIGURE 5: Aid disbursements by level. All donors,
2002–2013, US$ millions (US$ constant 2013)

4,000
3,000

15,000

2,000
1,000

20
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10
20
11

0

5,000

Lower Middle Income (LMICs)

13

Least Developed Countries (LDCs)
Upper Middle Income (UMICs)

12

20

20
13

10,000Source: CRS disbursements. NB: this is for direct aid to education rather than
total (see Annex 1 for an explanation)

13. UNESCO, EFA Global Monitoring Report 2012:Youth and Skills: Putting education to work, UNESCO, 2012.
14. For instance, in France, a Ministry of the Interior study showed that a third ofinternational students studying in France remained there to work. V. Migration NewsNo. 29, November 2011.
15. http://data.uis.unesco.org/index.aspx?queryid=142&lang=en

16. Note that around 15% of education aid is classified as “not allocable” by income
level of country. This includes a mixture of activities which may or may not benefit
the poorest countries and learners, including some regional commitments, multilateral support and a significant amount of funding to TA, donors own costs, TA andscholarships.
17. Education for All Global Monitoring Report, Policy paper 13: Aid reductions
threaten education goals, UNESCO, June 2014.

Aid to basic education
Aid to post-secondary

2

2
01

20

20
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10
20
11

0

Aid to secondary education

Education Aid Watch 20159

In addition to average national income levels, and extent of out-ofschool populations, the presence of conflict and disaster is an important
marker of need for greater donor support to education. An estimated
65 million children aged 3-15 are affected by emergencies andprotracted crises around the world.18 Figures for 2012 show that 33.8
million out-of-school children and adolescents live in conflict-affected
countries, with 70% of them living in countries in protracted crisis.19
Yet in times of conflict, disaster and displacement, it is vital to preserve
the right to education to prevent children of conflict becoming lost
generations – particularly for girls, who are disproportionately targeted
and affected.20
All of this points to a clear need for a significant proportion ofaid during humanitarian emergencies to be allocated to education.
The UN Secretary-General’s Global Education First Initiative (GEFI)
set a target of 4% of short-term humanitarian aid being allocatedto education. While this sounds modest, it is far beyond the actual
share – 1.4% in 2014, down from 2.2% in 2009. Aid for education in
emergencies tends to be ‘too little, too late.’ Four years into the Syria
crisis, for example, the donor community has yet to put in place thefinancing and coordination mechanisms needed to develop an effective
response, even though the crisis represents what is probably the single
biggest reversal in education of the past 40 years.
Some donors are far better than others at both directing theireducation aid towards countries with the greatest needs, including
Denmark, the UK and Ireland (though Ireland’s commitment to basic
education appears to be slipping), and to ensuring that humanitarian
aid meets education needs. Other bilateral donors, however, are faring
much worse on these measures, and the aggregate picture is clearly not
one of aid focused on the areas of greatest need.

Quality matters: improved targetingof aid to education is not enoughThe 2000 Dakar Framework for Action agreed action on not just thequantity but also the quality and effectiveness of aid for education:
it called for joint planning and monitoring of aid, and alignment
around country leadership, ownership and implementation. In
practice, this required donors to channel their funds via government
systems wherever possible, by promoting the delivery of aid throughgeneral budget support (GBS), as well as making use of sector-wide
approaches.21
There is evidence of the successful implementation and impact ofsuch approaches: the EFA Global Monitoring Report has documented
how, as national planning processes were strengthened, donors
channelled their funding through government systems and, in several
cases, pooled their funding to support national education plans.22
18. S. Nicolai, S. Hine, and J. Wales, Emergencies and Protracted Crises:Towards a
strengthened response, Overseas Development Institute, London, 2015 www.odi.org/
sites/odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/publications-opinion-files/9714.pdf
19. Education for All Global Monitoring Report, Policy Paper 21: Humanitarian Aid
for Education:Why It Matters and Why More is Needed, UNESCO, June 2015.
20. S. Nicolai et al, op.cit.
21. This was also encouraged by the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness in 2005
also affirmed the broader aid effectiveness and quality agenda, with the ambition tosee aid focused increasingly on an agenda promoting national ownership, coordination of donor efforts, a focus on results and shared accountability for outcomes
between donors and recipients.
22. Education for All Global Monitoring Report, Policy Paper 2- Beyond Busan:
Strengthening aid to improve education outcomes, UNESCO, Paris , 2011.

10 Global Campaign for Education

This is vitally important if aid is to be effective and support countries’
own efforts. Providing long-term, predictable budget support (either
to the general budget, in which case 10 percent is counted as aid
to education, or for the education budget specifically), for example,
enables governments to fund national priorities, rather than donor
preferences, and to allocate aid financing to recurring costs such asteacher training and pay.
However, there are concerns that donors are now retreating fromsuch approaches towards a model of support that involves moreinvestment in disconnected projects, which may or may not align withother donors, support national plans, or strengthen public systems.
Between 2009 and 2013, the share of total education aid from
DAC donors disbursed through the public sector23 fell by 25%.24
Currently only around a half of all aid is being channelled throughgovernment systems. Some of this aid through ‘public’ systems,
moreover, is not aid going through recipient country systems – which
is what is necessary to support national priorities and strengthen public
education systems in aid recipient countries; rather it is going throughthe public system in donor countries themselves. For instance, of theaid that France disburses through the public sector, the majority isthrough French government agencies, leaving only 7% channelled
through the recipient government agencies. For some donors,
channelling of funds in this way is likely to reflect their spending on
scholarships and imputed student costs.25
Meanwhile, general budget support, one type of aid which is
not only channelled through recipient government systems but canalso be allocated by them directly to their own programmes, plansand priorities, went down by around 30% from 2009 to 2012, a
significantly more marked decline than overall aid.26 There have also
been declines in ‘on budget’ aid,27 particularly for primary education.28
All of these trends appear to show there is less aid available,
especially of the kind which supports countries’ own public systems
and own education plans – often in the countries which most need
it. This suggests there is a need not only for a scale-up of aid and a
massive reorientation of aid towards areas and countries of most need,but also major improvements in supporting countries’ own plans in aharmonised way. Given this, there may be an argument for increased
bilateral contributions to those multilateral donors like GPE that arecommitted to supporting national ownership, prioritising countries
with the greatest needs and gaps, and focusing on basic and secondary
education.

Meeting the SDG financing needs
The new Sustainable Development Goal 4 sets out education targets
to be achieved by 2030 which are ambitious, but necessary, if the

23. www.oecd.org/dac/stats/channelofdelivery.htm
24. Taken from CRS DAC: although it is worth noting that 2009 was the all-time
high, and hence this figure is from the highest point.
25. Education for All Global Monitoring Report, Policy Paper 11 : prepared for theConsultation on Education in the Post-2015 Development Agenda: North America andWestern Europe region, UNESCO, December 2013.

26. It should be noted that this went back up again in 2013. Taken from CRS disbursements data.
27. ‘On budget’ aid refers to aid channelled through developing country budgets andis thus seen as highly aligned to governments’ own plans and priorities (as opposed to‘off budget’ aid which may go through parallel systems.
28. This is taken from Government Spending Watch data available here: www.gov-

ernmentspendingwatch.org/spending-datainternational community is to make any claim that it is seriously
committed to realising the right to education for all. The EFA Global
Monitoring Report estimates that reaching universal pre-primary,primary and secondary education – of good quality – in low- andlower-middle-income countries will require a total of US$340 billion
per year.
The draft SDGs and Incheon Declaration, however, include
no commitments or targets on donor assistance for achieving the
education goals. While we welcome the commitment to “scale up
investments and international cooperation to allow all children to complete
free, equitable, inclusive and quality early childhood, primary and secondary
education” in the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, agreed following therecent Third Financing for Development Conference (FFD3), there
remain concerns regarding the absence of concrete targets, specificallyon donor contributions – as well the lack of inclusion of the important
lifelong learning target.
Many low-income and lower-middle-income countries are alreadysubstantially expanding their education budgets, and could go further
with, for example, better and more progressive collection of taxes andnatural resource revenue. However, it should be noted that the failureof FFD3 to agree to establish a global tax body to support the efforts
of developing countries to increase domestic revenues could represent
a major setback for governments to achieve the ambitious levels offunding required.
And, beyond the expansion that must be achieved in domestic
financing, aid will remain a vitally necessary component for thepoorest countries, making the failure to agree targets in Addis highly
problematic: there will be no way to achieve 12 years of education for
all – just one of the SDG targets – without this. In the absence of thenecessary aid, countries may simply opt not to deliver the post-2015
vision – to continue, for example, a pattern of expanding school
access without the expansion in a professional teacher workforce
that is necessary to deliver quality – or to put the burden on poorfamilies through reliance on fees and private education, thus increasing
drop-outs and inequity in the education system.29

Conclusions and recommendations
While donor assistance is far from the only input needed to achieve
education goals in developing countries, it remains hugely important.
The lesson that can be drawn from this report is that – overall, anddespite some strong efforts by individual donor countries – the donor
community has failed to live up to their responsibility to provide
crucial financing where it is most needed. Not only has aid been too
little, badly directed and often poorly coordinated, there are signs thatsome of these problems are getting worse – with the share of aid goingto education falling, and the share going to basic education fallingeven faster.
If the international community is genuinely serious about ensuringthat all children, young people and adult learners have the chance toaccess a quality education, to acquire the skills, knowledge, learning
tools and values that will enable them to flourish in and contributeto a 21st century world, then they need to do far, far better with theirown financing contributions. Aid to education needs to be increased;
29. Report on low-fee private schools and privatisation in education, Global Campaign for Education (forthcoming September 2015).

but it also needs to be better directed. There should be a stronger focus
on basic education (at least half of education aid, and 10% of all ODA),
while financing for scholarships and student costs in donor countries– while worthwhile – should not count towards ODA; a prioritisationof low-income countries (which should get at least 50% of educationaid) as well as lower-middle-income countries with the greatest needs;
a significant increase in humanitarian aid going to education, to at least
4%; and much greater alignment of donor funds with partner country
priorities, particularly through budget support. There also needs to be
improvement in the detail and extent of data provided about education
financing – including within partner countries, so as to allow much
more engaged scrutiny by national civil society. An increase incontributions to GPE could make an important contribution tothese objectives, but GPE needs to maintain and improve its focus oncountry ownership, and dramatically improve the reporting of its own
spending through international creditor reporting systems.
Commitments or plans for donor funding have been notably
absent from the post-2015 process so far. No specific donor
commitments were made during the 2015 World Education Forum,for example. While the commitment to “scale up investments andinternational cooperation” to achieve free, universal, pre-primary, primaryand secondary education during FFD3 is welcome, there need tobe more detailed and specific commitments made – perhaps on adonor-by-donor basis – to map out how this will be achieved. Overall,a serious focus on donor financing is still needed – given that thelevel and quality of international assistance has fallen woefully shortin the last fifteen years. Donor governments must set a date to makethese commitments, or risk the SDGs and the Framework for Action
becoming hollow promises.
There is simply no more powerful or longer-lasting means toinvest in human rights and dignity, in social inclusion and sustainable
development than through supporting education. Indeed, achievementof any of the SDGs – not just SDG 4 – will require greater investment
in education. Finance alone may not be a sufficient condition forprogress, but it is necessary. Without resources, there is little hope ofmaking progress towards the SDGs. Donors must now step up theirefforts alongside partner governments, and make sure finance is not the
obstacle standing in the way of the new bold vision to ensure equitable
and inclusive quality education and lifelong learning for all. At theminimum, donors should meet the following targets:

Target 1: Increase overall aid and aid to education
Make more aid available by setting out clear national plans toachieve the long-standing commitment to deliver 0.7% of GNP as
ODA – a goal that was re-affirmed at the Addis Ababa Financing forDevelopment Conference – at least by 2020. Moreover, donors shouldcommit at least 15-20% of all their ODA to education.

Target 2: Align aid to the full SDG 4 agenda, requiring
increased aid to basic and secondary education.
Ensure financing for the full SDG 4 agenda – including thecommitments to equity, to 12 years of free education, and to basic
adult education – by ensuring that at least 10% of all ODA (and at
least half of education aid) goes to basic education, with significant
additional support for equitable expansion of secondary education.
Support for scholarships and student costs in donor countries, while
important, should not count towards education ODA.

Education Aid Watch 201511

Target 3: Focus aid on countries with the greatest needs

Target 7: Ensure aid supports public education systems

Make aid more pro-poor and more focused on reducing inequality,
again supporting SDG 4 equity targets, by focusing on the countries
with the greatest needs and largest financing gaps. This requires a focus
on low-income countries and lower-middle-income countries. At least
50% of all aid to education should be spent in low-income countries.

Support the achievement of SDG 4 targets on universal educationand equity, by ensuring aid supports free and public education, notfee-paying and private education; in particular, donor assistance should
never subsidise profit-making education.

Target 4: Ensure a much greater education focus in aid going
to conflict and disaster situations Ensure that at least 4% of
humanitarian aid is allocated to education.
Target 5: Actively support progressive and expanded domestic
revenue collection
Support countries to improve, expand and make tax systems, andtax and natural resource revenue collection, more progressive inorder to make more domestic resources available for education. This
will involve technical assistance, coordinated international action toensure fairer international tax rules, the shutting down of tax havens,and concerted efforts to reduce in tax avoidance by multinational
companies.

Target 6: Ensure aid supports partner country ownership
Improve aid effectiveness by aligning aid with country plans, and using
partner country systems. This should include an increase in budget
support and on-budget aid, and a corresponding reduction in projectbased aid.

12 Global Campaign for Education

Target 8: Increase contributions to the Global Partnershipfor Education
Donor countries must increase financing to – or begin to finance –the GPE, and ensure that the Partnership makes financing available forthe full SDG agenda and reinforces its operational support for country
ownership and civil society engagement.

Target 9: Improve transparency to facilitate better
citizen scrutiny
Education aid data must be part of the ‘data revolution’ and inparticular donors must prioritise making meaningful data accessible tocitizens in partner countries in an accessible and timely way, to allow
informed national debate. Data on aid to education should distinguishbetween aid to public education systems and private education; aid tosecondary education should be disaggregated into lower and upper
secondary; the OECD DAC should work with donors on transparency
and accuracy; and the GPE must begin reporting its contributions to
the OECD-DAC.

2

COUNTRY PROFILES

Aid in Australia was brutally cut in the 2015-16 budget, withan across-the-board 20% reduction. As a percentage of GNI,
this will bring Australian aid levels to historically low levels, withpredictions this will reach 0.21% by 2016.
Even more alarming is that these cuts will hit certain
countries and regions, as well as areas of the budget,
disproportionately to others. In one year alone, over 2015-16,
aid to education will see a sectoral reduction of 30%. There has
also been a dramatic geographical turning away from some ofthe poorest countries in the world, with a 70% reduction in aid to
sub-Saharan Africa, and a 40% reduction across Asia, with only
the Pacific region being shielded from this.
Moreover, the so-called ‘new aid paradigm’ introduced in2014, with a re-shaping of development policy around ‘national
interests and economic growth’, has targets which run wellbeyond the current financial year, suggesting the worst cuts
are yet to be felt in social sectors – including education - inthe poorest countries.
All this points to very worrying signs for the potential impact
on what was previously a good record of aid to education by
Australia; especially aid to basic education in recent years. Even
before the full weight of these cuts and this shift in development
policy was enacted, there was a reduction of around 20% in theoverall education and basic education budget between 2012
and 2013.
Currently the commitments made in 2014 to the Global
Partnership for Education replenishment round for 2015-18 look
likely to ensure some continuation of support to basic education
in lower-income countries in the coming years. However, thefuture of Australian aid to education, especially aid to basic
education in low-income countries, is at best uncertain.

FIGURE A1: Australia Total ODA as % GNI 2000-2014
0.40%
0.35%
0.30% 0.27%
0.25%

0.20%

0.25%

0.30%
0.26%

0.32% 0.32%

0.32%

0.34%

0.36%

0.29%

0.33%

0.27%

0.25% 0.25% 0.25%

0.15%
0.10%
0.05%
0

12

20

20
13
20
14

Executive summary

0.24% ODA-GNI ratio to 0.36%. As Figure A1 shows, Australia madesignificant progress toward the 0.5% target until 2012. However, in the
2012-13 and 2013-14 budgets, the commitment to reach 0.5% target
was extended to 2018, with reductions agreed as a temporary interim
measure, before a continuation towards the 0.5% target. This move
saw Australia’s ODA decline for the first time since 2001. In 2014
it became clear the 0.5% target was no longer an aspiration,31 while
the recent 2015-16 budget announcement has ensured that it is evenfurther out of reach for some time to come.
In May 2015, the government announced that ODA will be
cut by 20% in real terms. Considering the cuts scheduled for the
future (up to AUS $2.7 billion from 2016-18), this puts Australia on
a trajectory which will see its ODA fall to 0.21% of GNI by 20162017. The cuts will take Australia’s aid to the lowest levels on record.
Moreover, aid has been hit harder than other areas. While foreign
aid makes up a small portion of the government’s spending, the cuts
constitute around 25% of the Government’s budget savings.32
It is hard to decipher the full impact of current aid trends on aid
to education, especially given the OECD DAC data used in this report(for cross-country comparability) only runs to 2013. Therefore, the firstpart of the remainder of this analysis look at trends in aid to education
based on analysis of OECD DAC data up to 2013, while the second
half looks at the possible impact of recent cuts to aid to education
moving forward (and is thus slightly more speculative).

20
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11

Australia

Overall aid trends
In 2007, both major political parties in Australia made a bipartisan
agreement to lift Australia’s aid expenditure to 0.5% of its GNI
by 2015.30 This gave a major boost to already increasing aid levels,
which saw a doubling over 2004 and 2012, leading to a rise from a
30. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD Development Cooperation Peer Review: Australia 2013, 2013 www.oecd.org/dac/peer-reviews/OECD%20Australia%20FinalONLINE.pdf

31. www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-12/budget-background-foreign-aid-karen-barlow/5434888
32. Based on input from the Australian Coalition for Educational Development andthe following article www.results.org.au/largest-aid-cut-ever/Education Aid Watch 201513

Aid to education trends

FIGURE A3: Australia Total aid to basic education as %ODA 2002–2013

12%

12.1%
9.5%

10%
8%
6%
4%

12.1%

10.8%

9.8%
8.6%

5.9%

3.9%
3.3%

3.3%

5.5%
4.1%

3.6%

0

12

20

13

2%

12

20

20

20
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
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07
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0

One final noteworthy element of Australian aid to educationis that, between 2006 and 2012, the amount of ODA dedicatedsupporting to scholarships for students to study in Australia had beenon the decline – see Table A1. This went from consuming around
22% of the total aid to education budget in 2006 to 0.03% in 2012 –a welcome shift.

13

2%

As Figure A2 shows, since 2002, Australian aid to education has
fluctuated from 12.6% (in 2002) to a low of 5.9% (in 2005). Over theperiod this has averaged at around 10%, which means that Australian
aid to education has been above the DAC average, and above theaverage for countries within this report. The Australian government’s
development policy demonstrated strong political support for
education for all, and particularly towards supporting basic education
for the world’s poorest children. Indeed, in 2012, Australia was on
track to become a clear leader in education: with 12.1% of theirbilateral aid budget being spent on aid to education, they were thefourth most generous donor in this report, in terms of percentage ofaid committed to education and, maybe most significantly, the secondfor basic education, with 6.9% of all aid being spent on supporting
basic education (see Annex 1). From 2002 the Australian government
gradually increased the overall amount of education aid allocatedto basic education, with this reaching 57% of education aid in 2012
and 2013 – above the levels spent on basic education by many other
donors in their allocations to education. In 2010, the Australian
government pledged to increase aid to education to a total of AUD$5
billion by the end of 2016. This included a commitment to increasebilateral aid to education by 25% from 2010 to 2015. 2010 to 2012
saw significant increases in aid to education, so that, while overall aid
levels were increasing in volume, aid to education has been on the risein particular.
In June 2014, Australia pledged just over US$100 million to the
Global Partnership for Education’s 2015-18 replenishment round.
This makes-up roughly 5.5% of the total global fund over the period.
While this was not as generous as Australia’s commitment in the last
replenishment round – where Australia committed nearly twice asmuch over a 4 year period – this was still a significant contribution
towards supporting global efforts to scale up basic education.33

33. http://aid.dfat.gov.au/aidissues/education/Pages/initiative-global-partnershipeducation.aspx

14 Global Campaign for Education

3.7%

10.5%

8.7% 8.9%

9.2%

4%

5.6%
4.7%

4.2%

20

12.6%

6%

11

14%

6.9%
6.0%

20
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10

FIGURE A2: Australia Total aid to education as % total ODA
2002–2013

8%20

The recent dramatic cuts to overall aid will undoubtedly make a major
impact on what has, until very recently, been an excellent record on
support to education in developing countries. Moreover, given thesignificance of the Australian education programme globally, this could
also have a detrimental impact on the global goal to ensure education
for all.

Table A1: Australia Percentage of Australian ODA
dedicated to scholarships 2006–2012
2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

22%

29%

9%

14%

13%

9%

0.03%

Where to now for Australian aid to
education?
As the above shows, Australia was a good performer in terms of theiraid giving to education: this is now almost certainly a thing of the past.
Recent trends, combined with some of the areas which have taken
the deepest cuts in recent aid budget reductions, raise a red flag forAustralian aid to education.
Even before the dramatic cuts to the Australian aid budget, theeducation aid budget was haemorrhaging resources. In 2013, in just
one year alone, there was a 20% cut in the amount of aid spent on
education, and 22% cut in the amount spent on basic education.
The recent aid reductions, combined with the new Australian aid
policy and performance framework, which the Minister of Foreign
Affairs, Julie Bishop, announced as ‘a new aid paradigm’ in 2014,
suggests the worst cuts are yet to be felt. The new aid policy has been
‘reshaped’ around the aim of promoting Australia’s national interestsand economic growth (through trade, infrastructure and private sector
engagement).34 Recent aid-to-education trends represent a dramatic
decline in aid to education, especially for low-income countries,
and those countries ‘most in need’, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.
The information already known about the shape and size of thedramatic cuts to Australian aid raises alarm bells for this support inthe coming years.

34. The Hon Julie Bishop MP, ‘The new aid paradigm’, 18 June 2014 www.foreignminister.gov.au/speeches/Pages/2014/jb_sp_140618.aspx; Department for Foreign
Affairs and Trade, ‘Australian aid: promoting prosperity, increasing stability, reducing
poverty’.

CanadaExecutive summary
Despite years of relative decline, Canada is once again looking
to reassert itself as a leader in efforts to see all children learning.
2014 saw a drop in Canada’s overall foreign aid to 0.24% of GNI,
and direct aid to education comprised only 6% of foreign aid.
However, in 2014, Canada doubled its contribution to the Global
Partnership to Education to US$98 million (CA$120 million) for
2015–2018 and will be launching a new education strategy that
includes, among other key priorities, an emphasis on education
for children in crisis contexts.
Canada channelled 90% of its bilateral aid to the 25
countries of Canadian development focus, which comprises a
combination of low- and middle-income countries. Close to halfof the countries on the list appear in the lowest quintile of the
UNDP’s Humanitarian Development Index for 201435 and havesome of the lowest education indicators in terms of the numberof children out of school and learning achievement.

Overall aid trends
In 2014, Canada provided US$4.2 billion in foreign aid to developing
countries. This figure marked a decline of 11% from US$4.9 billion in2013, following a similar decline of just over 11% in 2013 relative to
2012. Canada is the ninth largest donor, per capita, of the 29 countries
comprising the Development Assistance Committee (DAC). Canada’s
2014 aid contributions represent 0.24% of its GNI placing it below the
0.3% average among donor countries and at less than one third of theinternationally agreed upon target of 0.7%. Canada’s overall ODA wasroutinely above 0.4% until 1998, but has never since reached this level,
and has seen a continuous decline since 2010.36

FIGURE C1: Canada Total ODA as % GNI 2000–2014
0.40%
0.34%

0.35%
0.30%
0.25%
0.20%
0.15%

0.28%
0.25%

0.27%

0.33%

0.29% 0.29%

0.34%

0.32% 0.32%
0.27%

0.30%

0.24%

0.24%
0.22%

0.10%
0

20

12

20

13
20
14

0.05%

20
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01
20
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10
20
11

It is clear that education as a sector has been hit by the cuts, from
AUD$145.5 million to AUD$101.8 million in the recent budget cuts –a 30% reduction from 2015 to 2016.
However, there is likely to be a double impact felt for education
support in certain geographical areas. The methodology used for
cutting aid was highly regional and geographically focused, with
40% cuts across Asia - apart from the Pacific area which was protected
within this – and close to total elimination in other countries orregions. Aid to the Middle East and Africa has been cut the most,with a reduction of 82% across the Middle East and North Africa,
and a reduction of 70% for sub-Saharan Africa. Conflict zones such as
Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and the Palestinian Territories have also seen
aid cut heavily.
This means that the previous commitment to support low income
countries in scaling up basic education with Australian aid, has been
seriously eroded.

The Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development(DFATD) is responsible for overseeing the majority of Canada’s aid
35. http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/table-1-human-development-index-and-its-components
36. OECD, Development Co-operation Report 2014: Mobilising resources for sustainable development, 2014 www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/download/4314031e.pd-

f?expires=1430935443&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=06886840650FFB97830473F86F24D282

Education Aid Watch 201515

Aid to education trends
Canada has been one of the strongest supporters of education over
the MDG-EFA period. Canada had a strong track record of support toeducation, but this support has declined in recent years as part of larger
aid cuts.39 This support has also reduced as a percentage of overall aid
in recent years, although signs are looking positive for this to rise again
in the future
At the launch of the MDGs, Canadian support to education
increased from 3.8% of all aid in 2000, to an overall high of 12.2% in
2010. Since that point, however, education support has fallen, reaching
only 7.8% of overall aid in 2013.40 Over the whole of the MDG-EFA
period Canada has been one of the most consistent performers on
education, committing an average of over 10% of total aid – and sittingin the top five performers in this report.
Although the largest proportion of aid to education and basic
education continues to go to low-income countries, this categoryof countries has also seen the biggest decline in disbursements
since 2010, while disbursements to upper middle-income
countries increased slightly.

FIGURE C2: Canada Total aid to education as % total ODA
2004–2013
15%
11.9%

11.5%

10%

9.4%

11.5%

12.2%

9.3%

8.8%

7.7%

7.9%

7.8%

12

20

20

11
20

10
20

20
09

20
08

20
07

20
06

20
05

0

13

5%

20
04

distribution. By far the largest percentage of DFATD’s aid budget(78%) is delivered bilaterally. A smaller percentage (7%) is allocated tomultilateral organisations and funding mechanisms; the final 15% isdisbursed by other Canadian government departments and agencies
such as Finance Canada and the International Development ResearchCentre (all 2013 figures37).
In 2014 Canada increased its number of developing countries andregions of focus from 20 to 25 which, according to DFATD, was basedon real needs, capacity to benefit from the aid, and their alignment
with Canadian foreign policy. The proportion of Canadian bilateralassistance these countries receive also increased from 80% to 90%.38
The 25 countries and territories are the Caribbean region, Colombia,
Haiti, Honduras, Peru, Burkina Faso, Benin, Democratic Republic ofCongo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Mozambique, Senegal, South Sudan,
Tanzania, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Indonesia, Mongolia,
Philippines,Vietnam, Ukraine, Jordan, and the West Bank and Gaza.
Bolivia and Pakistan were removed as countries of focus while Burkina
Faso, Benin, Democratic Republic of Congo, Burma, Mongolia, Jordan
and the Philippines were new additions to the list. Due to the freezeof the aid budget in 2010, and three subsequent years of cuts to theaid budget, the addition of these five countries came with no overall
additional funding.

Of Canada’s five key development priorities, education falls
directly under “securing the future of children and youth” but it also
supports all other development priorities (stimulating sustainableeconomic growth, increasing food security, advancing democracy andpromoting stability and security). Canada’s education priorities include
both access and quality of basic education with a particular focus on
girls, and promoting learning achievement through strengthening
teacher training and quality teaching and learning materials. Missing
from the strategy are provisions for education’s role in peace-building
and education in humanitarian crises, counter to the principles of
the Good Humanitarian Donorship Initiative, of which Canada isa signatory and the co-chair for 2014-2015 – although there areindications that the government may increase support to work inthis area.
In 2015 Canada launches ‘Education: Building Our Future’ –a new and more comprehensive education strategy for development
assistance. Preliminary discussions have indicated the strategy
will include a focus on upper-secondary education, education in
emergencies and strengthening skills for employment. The newdevelopment strategy also looks to make more explicit the links
between its flagship initiative in maternal, newborn and child health(MNCH), nutrition, child protection and education. Canada recently
committed CA$10 million to UNICEF to support education andchild protection in humanitarian situations, providing a further
indication that this is an area in which Canada will become
more involved.
While education spending declines, Canadian aid to other sectors
such as health and agriculture has continued to grow. The health sector,
which includes the government’s flagship MNCH agenda, receives
three times the amount of aid education does, or 18% of overall ODA
in 2013 versus education’s 6%. Food security (comprising agriculture,
food assistance and nutrition) is another sector that has seen substantial
steady increases in funding from 2005-2013, accounting for 9% of
overall ODA aid in 2013.41

Supporting countries in most need
37. Department for Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development (DFATD), Statistical
Report on Canadian International Assistance Fiscal Year 2013-2014, 2014 www.

international.gc.ca/development-developpement/assets/pdfs/sria-rsai-2013-14eng.pdf
38. www.international.gc.ca/media/dev/news-communiques/2014/06/27abg.
aspx?lang=eng
39. Given that Canada is a relatively small donor and disbursement levels can fluctuate greatly from year to year based on project timelines, disbursement rates were
calculated using three-year running averages.
40. DAC Creditor Reporting System Database (CRS).

16

Global Campaign for Education

Canada continues to support those countries most in need, including
those in the midst of crises. Canadian aid to low-income countries
has increased by $1 billion between the period 2003–4 and 2013–14
to CA$2.2 billion.42 In 2013-14 the government reported that
41. DFATD, op. cit.
42. Ibid.

70% of bilateral assistance was directed towards the most vulnerable
countries.43 The top ten recipients of Canada’s aid to basic education44
in 2013 were Senegal, Afghanistan, Tanzania, Kenya, Burkina Faso,
Mozambique, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Haiti and Mali, showing a clear
prioritisation of LICs and those with some of the lowest education
indicators in the world.
Humanitarian assistance increased, up 62% in 2013/14 over theprevious year to CA$857 million.45 Canada allocates most of its
humanitarian aid (84%) bilaterally, with 44% of bilateral humanitarianassistance going to the Middle East region, and 31% to Sub-SaharanAfrica in 2013/14.46
It is difficult to isolate the exact percentage of humanitarian
spending allocated to education; however, recent government
statistics note that CA$3.82 million was earmarked for education
through DFATD’s multilateral humanitarian assistance window.47 This
represents 15% of multilateral spending on education in 2013/14, andonly 1% of DFATD’s total budget. Given that the majority of Canada’s
humanitarian assistance is delivered bilaterally, it is likely that additional
financing for education in emergencies was realised but those figures
were not readily available.

Quality of aid support

There are some indications that Canada’s future aid spending will
increase. Canada’s desire to be a leader in the area of education infragile and conflict-affected states, as well as the potentially ambitious
new Education Strategy for Development Assistance, would bothnecessitate increases in education funding.

Conclusions and recommendations
It is recommended that the following measures be adopted by
the Canadian government:•••

An expansion of Canadian aid to support upper secondary
education, as aligned with the proposed SDG 4. The governmentof Canada should commit to giving 10% of its aid to basic
education, and safeguard financing for basic education within
an expanding agenda in order to ensure equity at all levels of
education.
Prioritisation of equity and quality in Canadian aid to education.
Continue to demonstrate leadership in the area of educationin fragile and conflict-affected states by increasing investmentsin this area.

The percentage of ODA that Canada has disbursed as ‘general budget
support’ has remained consistent at 1-2% of ODA. Sector budget
support for education has declined since 2009 and equalled 24% of
disbursements to education in 2013.48 Despite this trend, Canada hasreiterated its commitment to strengthening education systems, partly
through a recent announcement to double its contribution to the
Global Partnership for Education US$98 million (CA$120) million
over the period 2015-2018, making it the 7th largest donor to GPEat the time of writing.

Looking towards the post-2015
education agenda
Canada has recently outlined its negotiating priorities for the
post-2015 agenda. These include both core priorities (MNCH, job
creation/sustainable growth, and accountability) as well as cross-cutting
priorities (child, early and forced marriage (CEFM), empowermentof women and girls, and child protection). Education does not appear
as a standalone priority, but rather is included among its cross-cutting
priorities, in particular CEFM and empowerment of women andgirls. The Canadian government stated that ‘it is working to ensurea goal and targets that promote inclusive, quality education whereby
female and male learners from childhood to adulthood are able toacquire the skills and knowledge that they will need to make a positive
contribution to their families, communities, economic growth andpoverty reduction’.49
43. Ibid.
44. Based on DAC CRS data for total basic education in USD million 2013 constant
45. DFATD, op.cit.
46. Ibid.
47. Ibid.
48. DAC Creditor Reporting System Database (CRS).
49. Post-2015 Development Agenda – Government of Canada Priorities www.

international.gc.ca/development-developpement/priorities-priorites/mdgomd_consultations.aspx?lang=eng

Education Aid Watch 201517

FIGURE D1: Denmark Total ODA as % GNI 2000–2014
1.2%

Overall aid levels
Denmark is only one of three donors in this report - alongside
Norway and the UK - and only one in five countries across the whole
the OECD DAC database, to meet the 0.7% ODA/GNI ratio in
2014.50 Since 1978 Denmark has consistently met the 0.7% of GNI
to aid target, and is clearly a recognised leader in ODA – not only interms of overall ODA quantity, but also in terms of quality.

50. Denmark has a goal of reaching 1% within a few years, making Denmark one of
the most generous donors in the world.

18 Global Campaign for Education

0.96%
0.85%

0.8%

0.84%

0.81%

0.81%

0.82% 0.88%

0.91%
0.85% 0.83% 0.85% 0.85%

0.80%

0.6%
0.4%
0.2%
0%

20
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20
01
20
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10
20
11
20
12
20
13
20
14

Denmark has consistently met the 0.7% ODA target since1978. It is a long-term supporter of aid to education, with its
contribution gradually and consistently increasing since 2003.
Moreover, Denmark allocates a significant amount of its aid
to education to basic education; this has averaged around
50% of the total aid to education budget over the last five
years. Denmark particularly stands out for its support to basic
education in those countries ‘most in need’, i.e. low-income
countries with the furthest to go in terms of out-of-school
children. In fact, in 2013, 90% of Danish aid to basic education
was spent in least developed countries – way above other donors.
However, since 2013, there has been a reduction in levelsof bilateral aid to education, with this now almost phased out(with the exception of aid to Afghanistan), in line with a broader
development cooperation strategy to channel increased funds
through multilateral mechanisms. The loss of bilateral support
has affected many former partner countries, especially ones
which have simultaneously lost other donors. At the same time,
however, this policy has led to major new commitments to the
Global Partnership for Education, with the Danish government
pledging the third largest contribution to the Fund in the coming
four years.
More broadly Denmark has been a strong and vocal advocate
for education in international fora, particularly throughout the
post-2015 processes, and it is hoped, as the world moves into
implementing this, it remains a committed donor which supports
the new education framework.

1.06% 1.03%

Aid to education trends
As Figure D2 shows, Denmark saw a relatively stable commitment to
aid to education up until 2009; at this point it took a sharp upturn,with aid to education disbursements expanding by around 60%.
As Figure D3 shows there was a large rise in the amount of aid to
education as a total of the overall ODA pie over the same period,
demonstrating the Danish Government’s commitment to increase aid
to education within its overall 2009 ODA (which increased by only
0.36% from the preceding year). From 2009 to 2012 alone this saw aid
to education as a percentage of overall ODA increase from 5.1% to
9.8%.51 However, these figures started to drop off from 2013 – as yet itis hard to decipher if this is a short term blip or a longer term trend.

FIGURE D2: Denmark Total aid to education 2003–2013
US$ millions (US$, constant 2013)
250
206.7

200

169.2

209.0
148.5

150
100.8

100
50

54.8

55.7

59.9

77.0

87.2
79.6

0

20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10

Executive summary

1.0%

20
11
20
12
20
13

Denmark

51. It should be noted that Danish aid to education during this period, as classified by
the OECD DAC database, may capture this aid as slightly higher than it is in reality.
This is firstly because in counting disbursements this records the actual internationaltransfer of financial resources or of goods or services. As the aid committed in agiven year can be disbursed later, sometimes over several years, the annual aid figures
may actually reflect earlier commitments made – i.e. there may be a time-lag fromcommitment to delivery. This is particularly important for a smaller donor with fewer
projects like Denmark as it can lead to large disparities between commitments anddisbursements.

Supporting countries in most need

FIGURE D3: Denmark Aid to education as % total ODA
2003–2013
12%
9.4%

10%
8%

8.0%

7.4%
5.9%

6%

9.8%

6.0%

5.9%

6.4%

6.4%
5.4%

5.1%

4%
2%

20
11
20
12
20
13

20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10

0%

Aid to basic education follows similar trends to those in overall aid
to education: after a sharp increase in the total aid to basic education
between 2009 and 2012, this amount began to fall off in 2013.
However, there are a number of noteworthy trends in the Danish
contribution to basic education. Firstly, aid to basic education hasreceived, on average, 50% of the overall aid to education commitment
over the last 5 years,52 which is far higher than many other bilateral
donors (see Table D1). Considering the very substantial commitment
by Denmark to the Global Partnership for Education, and the fact that
this commitment is not counted as ‘basic education’, the actual
contribution since 2011 by Denmark to basic education is probably
higher in reality.53

TABLE D1: Denmark Percentage of total aid to education
allocated to basic education
2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

63%

58%

62%

59%

51%

53%

55%

47%

45%

FIGURE D4: Denmark Aid to basic education as % of total
ODA 2003–2013
6%
5%
4%
3%

5.2%
4.4%
3.7%

3.8%

3.5%

4.6%

3.9%

3.9%
3.2%

2.6%

2.9%

2%
1%

20
11
20
12
20
13

20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10

0%

52. This ranges from 51% in 2009 to 45% in 2013, and averages at exactly 50% overthe last 5 years.
53. For example, the contribution to the Global Partnership was US$51 million
in 2013, around one third of all aid to education contributions, but this is notclassified as ‘basic education’, rather as ‘education unallocated’ in the OECD DAC
database. Hence total contributions to basic education are likely to be underestimated. For a discussion of this see www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/

reports/2013/09/financing-global-education/basic-education-financing-final--webv2.pdf

Denmark has a good history of giving aid in support of the educationplans of some of the poorest countries in the world. As much as 90%
of all Danish direct aid to education54 was spent in LDCs in 2013.
Given that, on the whole, it is LDCs which continue to have thegreatest need in terms of scaling up basic education – including interms of quality and retention – and the least domestic resources to do
this with, this is an admirable commitment by the Danish government.
Meanwhile, nearly all of Danish aid to basic education (97%) was
allocated to sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia in 2013.
Denmark’s support to education has also focused heavily on fragile
states since 2006, with South Sudan, Nepal and Afghanistan as priority
countries over recent years; for example, in 2011 Denmark was thelead bilateral donor to education in Afghanistan. Taken together, it isclear that Danish aid to education has a strong emphasis on targetingthe countries with the most need, in terms of out-of-school numbers,
low-income levels and/or high fragility levels, and this should becommended.
Finally, a large amount of Danish aid is targeted at sector support
in education – close to 50% of all aid to education in 2013 waschannelled as budget sector support, which is significantly higher thanmany other donors. The remaining aid to education tends to havea heavy focus on supporting civil society involvement, as part of abroader strategy on development aid and engaging citizens.

Shifting bilateral to multilateral aid
and support to the Global Partnershipfor Education
The Danish Development Cooperation strategy, The Right to a
Better Life, commits to strengthening cooperation with multilateralorganisations and channelling more funds to the social sectors throughthe multilateral system. This has had a significant impact on Danish aid
to education in recent years. Most notably this has seen a commitment
to phasing out bilateral aid to education, in all but Afghanistan, and has
seen Denmark channel increased funding through multilateral donors,(provided they are in line with Danish priorities).
In many respects, this decision is a double-edged sword. On the
one hand, there has been a reduction in Danish bilateral aid, and withthat a corresponding reduction in the support given at country-level,
especially as Denmark has traditionally been seen as a strong partner
for national education plans and is perceived as “results-oriented, realistic
and fair”.55 As is shown in Section 1, the simultaneous reduction of anumber of strong bilateral partners in education, including Denmark,has had a major impact on levels of aid to education in some countries
in recent years, with some traditional partner governments lamenting
the loss of long and trusting relationships built up with the Danish
government, which had led to strong partnerships rooted in context
specific sensitivities and expertise.56

54. The definition of ‘direct aid to education’ is outlined in Annex 1, and relates tothe classification of sector allocable aid in the OECD DAC databases.
55. Frank Rothaus of the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, citing a Nepalesecounterpart.
56. Interview, L. Awasthi, Ministry of Education, Nepal.

Education Aid Watch 201519

On the other hand, this has seen a big boost to multilateral andcoordinated action and aid in education, which is also necessary. As
part of the strategy, the Global Partnership for Education has become
one of the main vehicles for delivering Danish aid to education. As
a multilateral platform promoting quality education for all, the GPE
fits well with the current development vision of Denmark, whichplaces emphasis on partnerships between the donors, the international
community and partner country plans, as well as with civil society. It
is for this reason that the GPE is currently seen as the main mechanism
to ensure equitable access to public education for all by the Danish
government, and is why Denmark is now one of the top contributors
to GPE.
In fact, at the 2015-2018 Global Partnership for Education
Replenishment Conference in June 2014, Denmark committed
US$247.6 million. This makes Denmark the third biggest contributor
to the Fund – after the much larger donors the UK and EU – witha contribution amounting to over 12% of the total committed to theFund for the 2016-18 period. Denmark has also been a ‘champion’in supporting the Global Education First Initiative. Finally, increased
funding is being channelled multilaterally to fragile states throughDanish support to UNICEF.

Conclusions and recommendations
The Danish Education Network under Global Fokus (GCE DK)
actively supports this priority and engagement by the Danish
Government. Moving forward, it calls on the Danish government to:•••Overall development strategies andpriorities: where does education fit?
During the 2010-2015 parliament, the Danish Government’s priority
sectors were human rights and democracy; green growth; and social
progress (including education).
The Danish Government no longer has a separate strategy foreducation and development. However, gender and girls’ education
are given special attention by the Danish Government. The former
Danish Prime Minister, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, has also made apersonal commitment to ensuring quality education, as a champion for
education in the Secretary-General’s Global Education First Initiative.
The new Danish government aligns with the European rights-based
approach to education and states’ obligations to provide free, public,
quality education for all and is currently not engaged in promoting
non-state education providers.

Looking forward to the post-2015
education agenda
With the change of government in June 2015 significant cuts in the
ODA budget are expected for the financial year 2016. Aid to education
could be affected negatively by these cuts, though it is expected thatthe new government will prioritise education as a key component ofDanish aid. It is vital Denmark continues to play a leadership role ineducation: support from Denmark has helped to decrease the numberof out-of-school children and has contributed to the fact that morethan eight million Afghan children, especially girls, go to primary andsecondary school.
Denmark has selected education as one of its priority areas for the
post-2015 goal setting agenda, and it is expected that the new Danish
Government will proactively promote education in the post-2015
negotiations for the new Sustainable Development Goals.

20

Global Campaign for Education••

Ensure a standalone goal on quality education in the
post-2015 development framework. GCE DK urges theDanish Government to ensure that the new SDGs will have strong
educational goals and targets, which can ensure quality education
for all and be an enabler of other SDGs and reduced inequality.
Sustain the political will to fund quality education as adriver to fight inequality and poverty, backed by increased
and targeted economic support. GCE DK welcomes theDanish Government’s contribution to GPE and urges theGovernment to use its influence in GPE to ensure that education
spending is targeting marginalised and vulnerable groups withquality education.
Monitor the impact of dwindling bilateral support toeducation. GCE DK is concerned about the phasing out of
Danish bilateral assistance to education and urges the Danish
Government to play a leading role in donor coordination andmonitoring of the effects of bilateral donors’ withdrawal and theresulting technical assistance ‘drain’ from the education sector,
which in itself could pose a threat to the functioning of GPE at
country level (with an absence of bilateral donors present).
Resist privatisation of education. GCE DK recommends thatthe Danish Government takes a lead in promoting free, public,
quality education, resists privatisation of education, and actively
promotes a progressive tax regime in developing countries inorder to mobilise funding for quality public schools, and supports
countries to meet at last 6% of GNI and/or 20% of domestic
resources to education.
Increase the support to education in conflict and disastersituations. GCE DK urges the Danish Government to increase
the allocation of humanitarian aid to education in conflict anddisaster situations and in fragile states, and to influence other
donors to do the same.

FIGURE F1: France Total ODA as % GNI 2000–2014
0.6%

Overall aid trends
During 2013 and 2014, France made ambitious commitments todevelopment, including the establishment of a new international
development and international solidarity framework and the National
Development Council. During the closing of the French Development
Conference in March 2013, President François Hollande went as far as
to commit to meeting the 0.7% ODI to GNI commitment: “Once weget back to growth, we can resume the upward trajectory towards theinternational goals we have set ourselves.”
However, this rhetorical commitment is not being matched by thereality of overall aid giving in France. Aid continues on a definitive
downward trajectory, with the total ODA to GNI commitment fallingfrom 0.5% in 2010 to 0.36% in 2014, and aid levels as a total droppingby more than 10 percentage points over the same period. From 2013
to 2014 alone there was a 12% reduction - after four consecutive yearsof decline. This means that France continues to be far from both theinternational and its own target of spending 0.7% of GNI on aid.

0.37%
0.31%

0.47%
0.39%

0.40%

0.50%
0.46%
0.45%
0.41%

0.36%

0.38%

0.3% 0.30%
0.2%
0.1%
0.0%

20
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20
01
20
02
20
03
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04
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05
20
06
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09
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12
20
13
20
14

Overall aid levels continue on a downward trajectory, with
French aid to GNI commitments falling from 0.5% in 2010 to
0.36% in 2014. In spite of this fall, the French government has
said it is committed to reaching the 0.7% target, once growth
returns to the French economy.
France has historically given far too little in aid to basic
education, when compared to their commitment to postsecondary education, and while they have cut aid levels overall in
recent years, aid to basic education is reducing more sharply –with aid to basic education cut 50% more than aid to education
as whole. Far too much of France’s aid to education is spenton scholarships and imputed student fees to support students
studying in France: in fact, in 2013, only 3% of the total amountspent on aid to scholarships was given in support of primaryeducation in least developed countries. France also gives far too
little support to the Global Partnership for Education, and moregenerally to multilateral funds to education.
Looking forward, the civil society groups which form the
French Campaign for Education for all expect French aid tofocus much more heavily on supporting basic education – include
increasing their support to the GPE – and to reduce the amountof aid spent on scholarships, while ensuring a strong education
strategy for the post-2015 framework.

0.4%

0.41%

It should be noted that in overall volume terms France continues
to be a significant global player, in spite of the decrease in aid levels; itremains the fourth highest DAC donor in overall volume terms.57
With France continuing to make firm national commitments
to aid, all be them rhetorical, and with France playing a significant
international role in 2015 when they host the World Conference on
Climate Change, it is disappointing that France’s budget reached a lowof 0.36% in 2014 – a level not seen since 2003.

Aid to education
As with overall aid levels, aid to education is following the generaltrend of decline, despite a genuine effort to maintain grants to
education in the face of declining ODA: in 2010, aid to education was€1.84 billion, compared to €1.45 billion in 2013.

FIGURE F2: France Total aid to education as % total ODA
2002–2013
30%

25%
20%
15%

25.9%
21.4%

22.5%
17.5%

23.3%
21.8%

20.1%
17.2%

16.9%
14.0%

18.2%
16.4%

10%
5%
0%

20
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03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10

Executive summary

0.47% 0.47%

0.5%

20
11
20
12
20
13

FranceEducation remains a top development priority for France,
coming ahead of health, agriculture and food security, and sustainable
development, in terms of the volume of bilateral aid allocated over thelast five years. Education aid represents 18.2% of total ODA in 2013
(when grants and loans are combined). However when only grants
are taken into account, then the amount of aid given to education
rises to 26.7%.58 However, while bilateral aid to education seems to
do relatively well, education continues to suffer from a lack of French
investment in multilateral aid.

57. www.oecd.org/dac/stats/development-aid-stable-in-2014-but-flows-to-poorestcountries-still-falling.htm
58. Loans count as part of the OECD DAC definition if they are concessional incharacter (i.e. include 25% grant and are at below market rates). Given that grants
are the preferred tool for support to basic social sectors, GCE’s French coalition has
chosen to also analyse the level of grants as a standalone component here.

Education Aid Watch 201521

Overall, during the MDG-EFA period, aid to education from
France appears, after some initial increases, to be reducing. After aperiod of greater mobilisation from around 2000 onwards in aid to
education, and a significant commitment between 2006 and 2010 toraising levels – with aid to education reaching a peak of around US$2
billion in 2007 – French aid has fallen back to levels it was at arounda decade ago. 2013 marked the lowest level of French aid to education
since 2005.

Is French aid helping to educate
those ‘most in need’?
In terms of prioritising low-income countries and countries with highproportions of out-of-school children, French aid to support education
for those most in need is notoriously poor.

FIGURE F3: France Education aid by level % (2013)
Basic 15%

Secondary 12%
Postsecondary73%

In 2013, France devoted just 2.7% of its total ODA to basic
education and, following four years of decline,59 this currently places
France way off the recommendation to allocate 10% of ODA tobasic education.
These levels of aid to basic education are particularly stark whencompared to the overall distribution of aid to education; for instance,
in 2013 higher education received 73% of French aid to education,
while basic education received only 15%, and secondary only 12% (seeFigure F3). In particular, when breaking down the areas within basic
education, early childhood education receives negligible support - lessthan 0.08% of ODA on education.
Moreover, these figures reflect a sharp decline in support forsecondary education and basic education over the past five years. Aid
to basic education saw a decline of 43% of aid between 2010 and 2013,
which is far deeper than the same decline in overall aid levels (less than
20%60) and aid to all education (24%61) – almost double the reduction.

59. Although there has been an overall decline over the last four years there was aslight peak from 2012 when it was 1.4%.
60. This is based on disbursements from the Creditor Reporting System (CRS) aid
database.
61. Using the UNESCO calculation, using ‘direct aid’ as reported sectorally to the
DAC this is around the same decrease (i.e. 24%).

22

Global Campaign for Education

Inflated aid: focus on scholarships
and imputed student fees
The high degree of French focus on post-secondary education isof major concern, as this contribution is not generally focused on
supporting the expansion in access to technical and vocational training,but is simply being spent on students studying in France. As well as
allocating a large amount of overall education aid to higher education,
French aid to post-secondary education is largely comprised ofscholarships and ‘imputed student fees’: aid which does not leave donor
countries and is instead spent on scholarships given to students fromdeveloping countries to study in donor countries, or associated costs.
This makes up a sizable chunk of French aid to education,
representing a shocking 41% of all aid to education in 2013. In fact,scholarships and imputed student fees were allocated close to three times
more than the total amount of aid France spent on supporting basic andsecondary education in developing countries in 2013.62 This compares
badly to spending on primary education in low-income countries: in2013 only 3% of the total amount spent on aid to scholarships was spenton primary education in least developed countries.
In summary, scholarships are eating into far too much of the overall
education aid pie, both in terms of supporting aid which targets thegoals of getting children into basic education, or beginning to support
more children and countries to expand into secondary education.
This goes against the stated prioritisation by the French to support
education in poor countries. Hervé Gaymard, the rapporteur on ODA
to the French National Assembly on behalf of the Foreign Affairs
Commission, highlighted the contradiction between aid to education
figures and the intention expressed in the French 2010-2015 strategy
to “promote from here to 2015 two major objectives: making a decisive
contribution to universal primary education (...); promote an integrated
approach to education, including primary and secondary education,
vocational training and higher education (...) “ He adds that “eventhough 26% of students counted [in higher education fees] come from
sub-Saharan African countries, one cannot forget that it is because of
taking into account these expenses that China has been for many years
now among the main beneficiaries of our action.”63

62. This rises to the even higher level when looking only at aid which can be allocatedto the education sector through the DAC codes only for education, and not using the
UNESCO education aid calculation, with aid to basic education and secondary education combined getting only 25% of the amount spent on scholarships and student fees.
63. Opinion presented on behalf of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the French
National Assembly during the review of the draft Finance Bill 2015 (No. 2263)

www.assemblee-nationale.fr/14/budget/plf2015/a2263-tIII.asp

Least developed countries: a verysmall share of French education aid
In July 2013, the French Interministerial Committee for International
Cooperation and Development (CICID) affirmed the commitmentof the French government to devote 85% of its financial contribution
to development in sub-Saharan Africa and in countries around theMediterranean, and focus at least 50% of its funding on a limited
number of priority poor countries. All of these elements have been
reaffirmed in the finance bill for 2015.

FIGURE F4: France Education aid by level % (2013)
Least developed
countries 22%

Upper-middle
income countries 49%

Lower-middle
income countries 29%

the period 2015-2018, France has significantly reduced its funding
commitments to the year 2015, amounting to €1 million, a derisory
sum in relation to its other commitments to sectoral multilateral funds,
including health.

Conclusions and recommendations:
As the critical final negotiations of the education post-2015 period
begin, the CSOs which form the French network of the Global
Campaign for Education expect the French government to:
•

•

•

•
In the education sector, the OECD recommended in its Peer
Review of Development Cooperation of France in 2013 that theshare of donations allocated to education and vocational training in
sub-Saharan Africa should increase from 12% (of total ODA in grants)
in 2009 to more than 30% in 2013, and that grants earmarked for basic
education in sub-Saharan Africa from 8% [of total ODA for education]
secured in 2009 to over 20% in 2013. However, in 2013, the figures
reached 7% and 2.7% respectively, showing a net decline compared toprevious years.
Only 22% of French ODA in the education sector in 2013
benefited the poorest countries, and among the 16 African countries
identified as priorities by CICID, many recorded a decrease insectoral aid received in 2013 compared to 2011 (Benin, Burkina
Faso, Burundi, Ghana, Guinea, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Central
African Republic, Togo and Senegal). The total disbursements of ODA
allocated to education in 16 priority countries fell by nearly 19%
between 2011 and 2013, from €356,395,000 to €301,182,000.

Increase commitments to aid for education, with 10% of ODA
focused on basic education, and focus on those countries andpopulations that are most in need, including the African continentand its priority developing countries.
Stop counting scholarships and inputted fees as ODA. As aminimum, only scholarships for students from low-income,fragile or priority development partner countries for France to be
counted as ODA, in order to not falsely inflate ODA figures withscholarships from other less vulnerable countries.
France must reconsider its commitment to the Global Partnershipfor Education, by including it in budget law in order to dedicate
sustainable and significant funding, on a progressive basis.
The French Government is preparing to define its strategy
for aid to education and training for the period 2015-2020,
following the adoption of the SDGs. The French network of the
Global Campaign for Education wants the issue of funding to besignificantly addressed to ensure sustainable and reliable/predictableaid from France in this priority area.

French contribution to the Global
Partnership for Education
France is an historic partner of GPE and played a leading role in its
creation. Since 2004, France has contributed a total of €70 million,
and has also assumed responsibility for two international experts,
for a total amount of €2.7 million. France also belongs to decisionmaking bodies of GPE, as a member of Donor Constituency Five on
the GPE Board, and by holding a seat on the Country Grants andPerformance standing committee. Over the period 2011-2014, France
had therefore committed €50 million to the financing of GPE, ranking
it as GPE’s 7th biggest contributor during that period. In view of its
previous commitments, the disappointment was all the greater whenFrance decided to review its contribution to the fund. Indeed, for
Education Aid Watch 201523

Germany continues on a slow and steady trajectory in terms ofincreasing their overall ODA/GNI ratio – although much fasterprogress is necessary for Germany to continue to be an ODA
leader in the post-2015 development world.
On the surface, Germany looks like a very generous donor
to education. Indeed, at over 15% of all aid going to education,
this is way above most other donors, and sees them at the top
end of bilateral donor commitments to education. However,
the total German aid commitment to education hides a numberof different trends within it: it has one of the lowest ratios of
total aid contributed to basic education, and within this an evensmaller amount goes to the poorest countries – with only 5%of all German aid spent on basic education in the world’s least
developed countries. This is because Germany spends over
two-thirds of its aid to education on post-secondary education,
often supporting students from middle-income countries tostudy in Germany: a total of 60% of all aid to education over thelast 7 years has supported scholarships.
However, the new coalition government has announced
that it is drafting a new education strategy as part of theirdevelopment cooperation strategy. This offers a new opportunity
for Germany to begin to find a more deliberate role for their
aid to support the post-2015 education agenda than has been
apparent over the MDG-EFA period.

Overall aid trends
Germany is the third largest donor of the Development AssistanceCommittee (DAC) in terms of volume. In 2014, Germany’s ODA/
GNI ratio was 0.41%; this is up marginally from 0.38% in 2013 and
0.37% in 2012.64 As Figure G1 demonstrates, this shows steady but sure
upward progress, although it remains unclear when, and if, the German
government intends to reach the 0.7% ODA/GNI target.
However, the German government’s announcement in March
2015 of an additional €8.3 billion commitment to ODA cumulatively
over the next four years sent positive signals of a renewed commitment
to increasing aid.65 This was part of new benchmark figures for 2016
published in the Federal budget and in the financial plan to 2019.
However, it should be noted that the stated aim is to merely stabilise
Germany’s ODA quota at around 0.4% of GNI.66 There remains somehope that the upcoming UN Financing for Development Meeting willoffer an opportunity for Germany to re-commit to bold, concerted
action in realising the long-standing commitment to significantly
increase ODA spending.
64. OECD DAC, accessed June 2015: www.oecd.org/dac/germany
65. ONE, The DATA Report 2015: Putting the Poorest First, 2015 https://s3.ama-

zonaws.com/one.org/pdfs/DATA_Report_2015_Executive_Summary_EN.PDF

66. Eckwertebeschluss der Bundesregierung zum Regierungsentwurf des Bundeshaushalts 2016 und zum Finanzplan 2015 bis 2019 www.bundesfinanzministeri-um.de/Content/DE/Pressemitteilungen/Finanzpolitik/2015/03/2015-03-18PM13-bundeshaushalt-anl2.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=3

24

Global Campaign for Education

0.45%
0.41%
0.37% 0.38%
0.39% 0.39%
0.38%
0.40%
0.36% 0.36%
0.35%
0.37%
0.35%
0.28%
0.30% 0.27%
0.27%
0.28%
0.25%
0.27%
0.20%
0.15%
0.10%
0.05%
0%

20
00
20
01
20
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10
20
11
20
12
20
13
20
14

Executive summary

FIGURE G1: Germany Total ODA as % GNI 2000–2014

Aid to education
Although the German government has made an effort to increaseaid to education, since 2009, the level of education spending as apercentage of ODA has declined, going from 20.8% - in line with thetotal recommended spending of 20% of all aid budgets on education– to 15.2% in 2013. In particular, the shrinking portion of the overall
increased ODA-budget that is allocated to education suggests a
decreasing prioritisation of education moving forward.
With the change of government at the end of 2013 there is achance that the downward trend could be put on hold or converted
into increased education spending. The grand coalition between thetwo major parties CDU/CSU and SPD has laid out the necessary
groundwork to build new support to education. The coalition
agreement for this election period, for example, highlights education
as a key thematic aspect of German development politics and the new
Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development, Gerd Müller,
announced during his first speech in January 2014 the intention toincrease allocations to basic education and vocational training to €400
million per annum.
In summer 2014 the BMZ started to revise its education strategy,
giving indications of a renewed intent to focus on education. Although
the revision process could, in principle, mean that BMZ is serious
about emphasising education, the outcome of this process is yet to beseen, and at the time of writing, the process has not been concluded
and no final document is available. Moreover, the vague timeline
and the delayed process for this strategy development is a cause
for concern.

FIGURE G2: Germany Total aid to education as % total
ODA 2002–2013
25%
19.1%

20%

20.8%

20.8%

15%
13.6%

10%
5%

18.0% 17.9%

15.7% 15.2%

16.9%

15.2%

15.1%

5.3%

0%

20
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10
20
11
20
12
20
13

GermanyAid to education trends
German aid to basic education has always been low, compared toother countries and compared to total commitments to education aid
overall. German aid to all education is very high amongst the countries
analysed in this report – across the 15 bilateral donors, Germany gavethe second largest contribution as a percentage of ODA over the
2002-2013 period, at 16.3% on average. Although Germany now givesslightly less than in other years, in 2013 Germany still spent the thirdlargest amount of their total aid budget on education of countries inthis report, at 15.2%.
At the same time, Germany made the second lowest contribution
to basic education as a percentage of its total ODA – in 2013 thiswas just 2.4% of all aid.67 In fact, this has never reached higher than
3.6% of total ODA since 2002. Moreover, lately, the trend on basic
education has been negative, with a sharp decline from 3.6% in 2011
to 2.4% of ODA in 2013. It now makes up only around 16% of all
aid to education. Secondary fares no better, with less than 10% being
spent on it.

FIGURE G3: Germany Education aid by level % 2013
Basic 16%

which 3% was in sub-Saharan Africa. As such, on first glance Germany
looks like one of the most generous donors to the global effort todeliver education for all, but on second glance this is much less clear.

Table G1: Germany How much of German aid is spent on
scholarships or student fees as % of education aid over thelast 7 years?
2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

69%

64%

61%

63%

60%

60%

59%

In addition, a significant proportion of German aid continues tobe focused on middle-income countries, with 40% of aid to education
channelled to upper-middle income countries, with large amounts
channelled to supporting scholarships for students from these countries
to study in Germany. For instance, 11% of all aid to education in2013 was spent on scholarships to support Chinese students to studyin Germany.68

FIGURE G4: Germany Aid to basic education as % ODA,
2002–2013
4.0%

Secondary 10%

2.0%

0.5%

The reason that both basic and secondary education get such
low amounts of aid, and yet Germany remains such a significant
contributor to overall aid to education, is because, in 2013, 74% of all
German education aid was spent on post-secondary education – thelion’s share.
Even more worrying is that, within this, 80% of the German
contribution to post-secondary education is spent on scholarships or
imputed student fees: that is, aid which doesn’t leave Germany and isinstead spent on scholarships, and other associated costs, for students
from developing countries to study in Germany.
This money is usually from the German federal states, but it iscounted as aid. In total, this amount makes up well over 50% of total
aid to education over the last six years (see Table 1). By counting this as
ODA, Germany massively inflates its education spending and has beenrightly criticised for this practice. This has the effect of exaggerating
the German contribution to supporting education for children in
the developing world or helping partner countries to deliver on theircommitments to scale-up education for all.
This money could be spent supporting children in the world’s
poorest countries and helping them to get a basic education. This isespecially the case considering that only 5% of all aid from Germany
in 2013 was spent on basic education in least developed countries, of
67. This trend is also replicated over 2002-2013 period tracked in this report, with anaverage of 2.4% of German ODA allocated to basic education (see Annex 2 for moreon this).

3.0%
2.4%

2.3%
2.2%

1.9% 2.0%
1.5%

1.5%
1.0%

1.4%
1.1%

0%

20
02
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03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10
20
11
20
12
20
13

Postsecondary 74%

3.4%

3.0%
2.5%

3.6%

3.5%

3.5%

Support to the Global Partnershipfor Education
Disappointingly, in spite of the commitment by the German
government to increase their overall contribution to education, theMinistry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)
failed to use the Global Partnership for Education’s replenishment
conference in June 2014 – the first chance it had to concretelydemonstrate its new stated support to education – to send aconvincing signal. Only US$40 million was committed to thefund during the 2015-18 replenishment period, which is very low,comparative to the overall aid level and significance of German aid,
and this amounted to only around 2% of the expected GPE funds
during this period.
However, BMZ support to the German government’s BACK-UP
initiative, which provides funds for GPE developing country partner
constituencies to meet and prepare their positions prior to meetings,
has played a valuable role. This has greatly increased the influenceof these constituencies during GPE Board meetings, and thus theirimpact on education support, clearly meeting the objective of the
BACK-UP initiative.
68. In 2013 US$187 million was spent in scholarships for Chinese students to studyin Germany, while another US$46 million was spent on Turkish students; US$47
million on Iranian students; and US$21 on Brazilian students. Taken together thisrepresents 17% of all aid to education in 2013.

Education Aid Watch 201525

Conclusions and recommendations
German aid to education has lately been on a downward trend witha sharp decline in spending for basic education. Also worrying is thelevel of aid being directed to scholarships and counted as imputed
student fee costs that count for around half of the overall aid budget
on education.
With the pledge to raise aid to education to €400 million annuallyand the revision process of the education strategy, Minister Müller
raised expectations around Germany’s contribution to realise theright to education for all. However, it is yet to be seen if the German
government will keep its promise and increase spending for education.
In terms of policy development the BMZ should speed up the processof revising the education strategy, and support it with a tangible set ofgoals and a robust accountability mechanism.
•••

Germany needs to increase overall aid to education and settle on arealistic timetable for meeting their target of 0.7% of GNI as ODA,
and continue to share a large portion to education.
German aid to education should the channelled to countries mostin need, especially by improving their support to basic educationin sub-Saharan Africa – the region where most out of school
children live.
Germany should allocate the greatest amount of aid to strengthen
the education systems of partners directly, and refrain fromcounting scholarships and imputed student fees as ODA. A more
realistic picture of Germany’s contribution to supporting people inpartner countries to realise their right to education must be drawn,
in order for Germany to provide genuine resources for investment
in education partner countries.

Ireland
Executive summary
Ireland has been one of the largest bilateral donors to education– especially basic education – over the MDG-EFA period. Since
2009, cuts in overall aid as a result of the recession in Ireland
have seen aid to education drop by around 50%. It should also be
noted that the 2013 development aid policy review highlighted
three goals: reduced hunger, stronger resilience; sustainable
development, inclusive economic growth; and better governance,
human rights and accountability. Within these goals, six priority
areas for action were included, and education was not explicitly
named.
Although Ireland remains a significant contributor, interms of the percentage of aid allocated to education and basic
education, this is beginning to reduce. It is hoped this does not
spell a long term trend, as Ireland has been a clear leader in giving
to basic education over the MDG period – giving over half of
its total aid contribution to basic education. Ireland also has astrong focus on supporting some of the poorest countries in theworld: even today this still stands with close to 70% of aid tobasic education being spent in the least developed countries –substantially above many other donors.
Moreover, Ireland is something of a role model in terms of
the quality of its aid to education; aid follows countries’ national
priorities, supports national sector plans and has a strong focus
on equity, quality and civil society involvement. This meansthat despite Ireland being a small donor country, the model of
its support to education is one to be emulated. It is hoped that
Ireland will be strong advocate for continual support to education
systems, with good quality aid, that can help to improve quality
and support countries to scale up their education plans in the
Post-2015 education framework.

Overall aid trends
Ireland’s aid rose considerably and steadily from 2000 to 2008, coveringmuch of the MDG-EFA period, in line with the Irish government’s
commitment at the turn of the 21st century to meet the 0.7% ODA/
GNI target. However, in 2008, in the fall-out from the global financial
crisis and as Ireland went into recession, the aid budget was cut back ina round of austerity measures. As shown in Figure I1, this created two
distinct patterns over the MDG-EFA period: aid was on a continual
upward trajectory towards the ODA/GNI targets until 2008, but, after
the recession, ODA as a percentage of GNI has been reducing, hitting
0.38% in 2014, from a high of 0.59% in 2008.
However, in March 2014, Joe Costello, Minister for Trade andDevelopment, stated that: “the Government remains committed tomoving towards the UN tar­get for aid of 0.7% of GNP as soon as economic
circumstances permit.” As such, it is hoped that as the Irish economy
continues to recover so too will the aid budget.
In the same statement the Minister also noted that the Irish aid
programme “has the reputation of being one of the best in the world…”
26

Global Campaign for Education

and rightly so. The quality of aid continues to be stand-out elementsof Ireland’s development programme. Notably, it is fully untied,69
and Ireland does not count areas of inflated aid – meaning much ofthis is largely seen as ‘real aid’.70 Meanwhile, Ireland is credited withchannelling over 70% of its assistance through partner country systems.
Ireland’s aid also tends to focus heavily on supporting some of theworld’s poorest countries, with all of Ireland’s bilateral aid going to
sub-Saharan Africa (70% in 2013). Remarkably, Ireland spends around
50% of its aid in least developed countries – only one of two countries
across the whole of the DAC to do so in 2014.71 Perhaps more
importantly, in April 2014 the Minister of State for Development,
Trade Promotion, and North-South Co-operation, Seán Sherlock,announced a bold commitment to continue to spend at least 50% of
aid in the world’s poorest countries.72

20%

18.6%

17.2%
14.2%
12.9%
10.8%

12.2%

13.2%

13.6%
11.8%
12.0%

10%
0.59%

0.6%

0.54%

0.5%

0.40%
0.33%
0.29%

0.55%

0.42%

0.54%

0.51%

0.52%

0.39% 0.39%

0.46%

0.47%
0.38%

9.0%

9.7%

5%
0%

20
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10
20
11
20
12
20
13

0.7%

0.3%

FIGURE I2: Ireland Aid to education as % total ODA
2002–2013

15%

FIGURE I1: Ireland Total ODA as % GNI 2000–2014

0.4%

As Figure I2 shows, aid to education fell from 13.6% of the total
aid budget in 2009 to an all-time low of 9% in 2012. This appears toshow that Ireland is no longer placing as much emphasis on education.
The combination of the reduction in aid spending and the apparent
shift in focus has left a large dent in the Irish aid to education budget.
The potential bright spot in this trend is that, in 2013, there appears to
be a return to a marginal upward swing – hopefully demonstrating that
Irish aid to education reached its nadir in 2012, and is now retuning toincreasing levels again.

0.2%
0.1%

20
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20
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20 1
02
20
03
20
04
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05
20
06
20
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20 7
08
20
09
20
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20
11
20
12
20
13
20
14

0.0%

Aid to education trends
Since the start of the 21st century Ireland has made considerable
investments in education. As Ireland’s overall aid levels increased,
and with a strong focus on education in Ireland’s aid strategy, asignificant amount of Ireland’s aid was channelled towards education.
Even including the recession period, Ireland has shown a strong
commitment to aid to education over the whole of the MDG-EFA
period, averaging around 13% of its total aid budget (see Figure I2 fortrends from 2003-2013). In 2003 they came very close to spending thegold standard amount of 20% of total ODA on education – one of thevery few countries to do so.
However, since 2009 there has been an ongoing reduction in Irish
aid to education, as a percentage of total ODA. From 2008 to 2013,
there was a halving of education spending as a total. While at first thisdid not appear to have a large impact on the overall commitment toeducation aid – but rather appeared to be more a reflection of total aid
budget cuts – this now appears to reveal a clear downward trajectoryin terms of a dwindling commitment from the Irish government
to education.

Meanwhile, aid to basic education has seen reductions too.
Traditionally Ireland has been a star performer in its commitment tosupporting basic education in developing countries; indeed, in our
analysis of average spending levels over the MDG-EFA period, Irelandcame second – just behind the Netherlands – in giving the highest
ratio of overall aid to basic education during a ten year period (seeAnnex 2). Moreover, aid to basic education has gained well over half(rising to 66% in 2006) of overall aid to education spending – oneof the few countries to do so consistently – for a number of years.73
Ireland was also one of the few countries to give 10% of its total aid
commitment to basic education at any point over the period (seeFigure I3 below). Even with recent reductions, Ireland still gives thefifth largest amount of its total aid to basic education.
Unfortunately, however, aid to basic education is also seeing a
reduction in recent years after falling from 8.4% of total aid spendingin 2009, to 4.6% in 2013.

FIGURE I3: Ireland Aid to basic education as % total ODA
2002–2013
12%
10%
8%
6%

10.7%

9.7%
9.0%

8.0%

7.4%
7.2%

7.5%

8.4%

7.5%
6.8%
4.8% 4.6%

4%

Poorest First.

72. https://www.irishaid.ie/news-publications/press/pressreleasearchive/2015/

april/ireland-renews-commitment-on-aid-to-worlds-poorest/

2%
0%

20
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03
20
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20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10
20
11
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69. OECD, OECD Development Co-operation Peer Reviews: Ireland 2014, 2015
www.oecd.org/dac/peer-reviews/Ireland%202014%20full%20report.pdf
70. Concord, Aid Watch 2012: Invest more in global development, 2012 www.concordeurope.org/publications/item/101-aidwatch-report-2012
71. In 2012 Ireland spent over 50% while in 2014 this was at 49% - very close to
the 50% commitment. Iceland is the only other country in the DC to spend 50%of their aid in LDCs in 2014. Figures taken from The DATA Report 2014: Fighting
Poverty and Financing Africa’s Future, and The DATA Report 2015: Putting the73. This actually dropped just below 50% in 2013, to 48%, for the first time in the
period covered by this report. It is hoped this is not something which will continue
in future years.

Education Aid Watch 201527

A strong focus on LDCs and good aid
quality in education
Even with these disappointing trends in aid quantity, Ireland still stands
out as a continual star performer in terms of the quality of its aid to
education and as a strong supporter of basic education in the poorest
countries.

Aid to basic education as% of all aid to education

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

Table I1: Ireland Decreasing aid to basic education trends
raises concerns over de-prioritisation of basic education

66% 61% 57% 62% 56% 63% 54% 48%

Moreover, there has been considerable and generous support from
Ireland to the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) over a numberof years, which potentially hides some of the contribution to basic
education, suggesting, in actuality, this could be even higher.74
As noted above, there is an exceptional history of Ireland
supporting some of the poorest countries, with high quality aid.
Almost all Irish aid to education goes directly to partner countries,
with no tied or inflated aid. The Irish government estimates it spends
around 70% of all expenditure on education in partner countries in
sub-Saharan Africa.75 In 2013, analysis carried out for GCE showedthat over 60% of all aid to education is spent in least developed
countries, and this rises to as much as 70% in basic education. This isconsiderably higher than most other donors.
Finally, and significantly, Irish aid is very well aligned with national
priorities. Ireland has been among the frontrunners in prioritisingbudgetary support, and in aid to education they are among the leaders
in terms of sector support and also pooled and basket funds. For
instance on 2012, 4% of all aid to education was sector or budget
support, and over 75% was classified as pooled or core contributions,with half of this going as basket funds - this is the highest amountacross the countries in this study.
As noted, Ireland has also been a firm supporter and contributor(in terms of its total aid budget) to GPE. In 2014 at the GPE
replenishment conference this commitment was re-affirmed when
they pledged US$17 million in total - or just over US$4 million ayear between 2015 and 2018. This confirms an ongoing substantialcommitment from the Irish government, in terms of its total aid to
education budget, although this is slightly down from the previous
four-year GPE pledge.76 In addition, for several years, Irish Aid has
provided approximately €100,000 per annum to UNESCO to enable
it to produce the Education for All Global Monitoring Reports.
Universal access and equity, girls’ education, and meeting theneeds of marginalised and vulnerable children and young people are
all strategic priorities for Ireland’s aid policy. Ireland also prioritises
significant improvements in quality through the support of national
74. See Section 1 for a discussion on this.
75. Irish Aid, Education Policy and Strategy: Building Sustainable Education Systems
for Poverty Reduction, Department of Foreign Affairs, 2008 www.irishaid.gov.ie/

media/irishaid/allwebsitemedia/20newsandpublications/publicationpdfsenglish/
irish-aid-education-policy.pdf
76. In 2011 the government made a commitment to contribute €30 million a year
over four years (2011 through 2014) to the GPE.

28

Global Campaign for Education

systems, with a special focus on teacher training, curriculum
development and quality assessment systems. The main emphasis is on
high-quality primary education in developing countries, especiallyfor marginalised and vulnerable children not in school. Finally, civilsociety involvement is a high priority, and Ireland is commended forits structured approach to cooperation with NGOs.

Conclusions and recommendations
The government of Ireland should be given credit for ensuring that its
commitments to supporting good quality basic education for children
in the poorest countries has remained a focus - although recent trends
suggest an overall reduction in basic education may be tarnishing what
has otherwise been an impeccable contribution over the MDG-EFA
period. It is hoped that Ireland will be a strong advocate for continual
support to education systems, with good quality aid, which can help toimprove quality and support countries to scale up their education plans.
Along with a long-term commitment to supporting LDCs, this could
make Ireland an important model for other donors to follow in terms ofcontinuing to focus on LDCs and education systems moving forward.

Executive summary
Italy’s overall ODA as a percentage of GNI is very low. In
2014 Italy gave one of the lowest percentages of GNI to aid at
0.16% across all donors. This translated into lower levels of aid
available for sectors such as education. However, education getsa particularly small piece of the overall aid pie, and Italy was thelowest contributor to of aid to basic education as percentage
of ODA in 2013. Moreover, over the MDG-EFA period it has
consistently been in the bottom of global ranking of donors,
and basic education in sub-Saharan Arica got less than 10% of
aid to education in 2013. In part, this is due to large amounts ofaid being spent on scholarships - more than the amount spent
on supporting the least developed countries to ensure basic
education for all in 2013. Aid to education tends also to be highly
project-based, and does little to support developing country plans.
However, against this backdrop, at the moment there arevarious bright spots: a new development cooperation frameworkand organisation are being developed, and new commitments toraise ODA spending levels have been announced. For education,much more needs to be allocated, especially to basic education.
However, contributions to the Global Partnership should
continue to be pursued in order to give more and better quality
aid to developing countries’ plans to scale up basic education.

in fact continued under the current government and leader, Prime
Minister Matteo Renzi, with a new law on development cooperation
approved in 2014. This will introduce a new operational structure,including the creation of a new Italian Agency for Development
Cooperation, and a Vice-Minister for Development Cooperation.
According to the 2014 budget law adopted in December 2013,
Italy’s annual ODA is set to further increase, albeit slowly: the Renzi
government has reconfirmed Italy’s commitment to increasing thebudget by at least 10% over the next few years, with the aim ofgradually raising the ODA/GNI ratio to 0.24% by 2015, and to
0.31% by 2020. This new institutional structure and the indicationthat Italy intends to become more of a deliberate and serious actor ininternational development indicate a potential development towards
Italy having a more expansionary aid agenda, which, given the overall
low levels of aid over the last decade or more, and the cuts in recent
years, is a very welcome move.

FIGURE IT1: Italy Total ODA as % GNI 2000–2014
0.35%

0.29%

0.30%
0.25%
0.20%
0.15%
0.10%

0.22%

0.20%
0.17%

0.13%
0.15%

0.20%
0.17%

0.20% 0.19%
0.16% 0.15%

0.15%

0.14%

0.16%

0.05%
0%

20
00
20
0
20 1
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
0
20 7
08
20
09
20
10
20
11
20
12
20
13
20
14

Italy

Overall aid trends

Aid to education trends

Italy’s overall ODA as a percentage of GNI is very low. In 2014 Italy
gave one of the lowest percentages of aid to GNI at 0.16%, leaving
them eighth from the bottom of the list of 28 DAC donors. This left
Italy just ahead of Spain, the only other ‘traditional’ European donor in
the bottom eight, while the remainder are drawn from newer donors,
such as South Korea and Poland. Italy was the lowest spending G7
country in 2014.77
This continues a long-term trend by Italy which, on paper, remains
committed to eventually reaching the international 0.7% ODA/GNI
ratio, but has not surpassed 0.19% ODA/GNI for over 10 years. While,
admittedly, Italy has been hit by the fallout from the Eurozone crisis,
these low commitments are not solely a result of this; Italian aid has
hovered stubbornly around this low threshold for several years, and has
consistently been one of Europe’s lowest donors.
However, it should be noted that Italy has actually increased
spending from 0.14% in 2011 (see Figure IT1 below); other recent
trends may indicate a possible renewed vigour behind Italiandevelopment cooperation.
In 2011 the government started a process of agreeing a new
department, and created a dedicated position of Minister ofInternational Cooperation within the Prime Minister’s office. While
the structures implemented in 2011 no longer exist, this focus has

While this good news gives hope to overall Italian aid levels, much
more must be done to support education.
Not only is Italy’s aid overall very low but the commitment tospending aid on education within that is also very low, relative toother bilateral donors. In 2013, only 5.6% of overall aid was spent on
education, which is very low among the donors in this report – infact, 5.6% is the average of Italian aid to education over the entire
MDG-EFA period, with only 2.3% on basic education, way below
the recommendation of spending 20% of their aid to education, and
10% of aid to basic education which has been estimated as required
to ensure “no country would be thwarted” by a lack of resources in theircountry plans for EFA. This means that, overall, Italy comes bottom,
or close to bottom, of the countries in this report - not only on its
overall levels of ODA to GNI but also on the ratio of that aid spent on
education, and basic education.
In quantity terms (see Figure IT3 below) Italy’s aid to education
has dropped in the last few years, more than some other areas of aid,
which reflects cuts to aid more broadly. However, aid to education asa percentage of overall aid has experienced large fluctuations (FigureIT2), making it much harder to decipher the overall trends, although
it does appear that Italy has kept the overall percentage of ODA –relatively – stable.

77. This is the OECD list, which is available here: www.compareyourcountry.org/

oda?lg=en

Education Aid Watch 2015

29

FIGURE IT2: Italy Total aid to education as % total ODA
2002–2013

FIGURE IT4: Italy Total aid to basic education as % ODA
2002–2013
6%

12%

11.3%

10.9%

4%

10%

7.3%

8%

8.1%

4.2%

4.8%

2%
1%

3.2%
3.0%

3.3%

1.1% 1.0%

1.3%

1.2% 1.1%

2.3%

1.7%

1.6%

0%

20
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10

2%

3.0%

2.5%

20
11
20
12
20
13

20
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10

0%

20
11
20
12
20
13

2.5%

3.4%

3%
5.6%

6%
4%

5.3%

4.8%

5%

FIGURE IT5: Italy Education aid by level % 2013
FIGURE IT3: Italy Total aid to education 2002–2013
US$ millions (US$ , constant 2013)

Post-secondary 22%

Level unspecified 37%

150
119.1

108.0

100

96.6
85.7 84.5

57.7

74.8 81.7
55.4

60.6

55.1

50 37.0

Basic 21%

20
11
20
12
20
13

20
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10

0

Italy also gives very little of its aid to basic education – only 2.3%
of Italy’s aid is being allocated to basic education in 2013, the lowest
across the 14 countries in this report in 2013. Over the whole periodof 2002-2013 only around 2.3% has been spent on basic education,
meaning they are just short of being the third lowest in spending
levels over the period in this report. Moreover, when looking at‘direct aid’ to education Italy is spending only 1.2% of its overall aid
on basic education – the lowest in the report. This is because a lot of
Italian aid to education is being spent and classified as ‘unallocatedaid’ – above US$19 million dollar in 2013. However, of this amount,
positively, nearly US$2 million was given to the Global Partnershipfor Education; less positively, far too much of the remainder is spent
on various small project interventions, and some on refugee costs incountry. Project support and small project activities dominates Italian
aid to education, with no sector support at all given in 2013, andwithin this fragmented picture of project-giving far too much is given
on technical assistance, or on scholarships and/or imputed students
fees. For instance, in 2013, the amount allocated to scholarships
and student fees (US$6.3 million), is much more than the amountallocated to aid to basic education in LDCs (US$3.8 million). In total,
scholarships made up about 50% of all direct aid to basic education. As
a result of all of these factors, basic education tends to get a small partof the overall pie (Figure IT5). Finally, Italy’s support to those countries
most in need, and to areas of education in the most need within that,is also weak, with only 9% of all direct aid to education going to basic
education in Africa in 2013.78
78. Although as noted above this figure is likely higher if the unallocated contributions in project form are taken account of.

30 Global Campaign for Education

Secondary 20%

Italian development and policy:
education is important, but nota priority
Although education is seen as important, it is not as high adevelopment priority as food, migration, health and public-private
partnerships (PPPS). Currently, Italy’s long-term development policy
is being renewed; in the shorter term, its priorities for development
cooperation are outlined in the programming guidelines for 2014–16
and include poverty reduction and the achievement of the MDGs,
agriculture and food security, human development (which includes
health and education), human rights and gender equality, private sector
development and the environment. However, with Italian development
cooperation currently being renewed there is some space for change,
and it is hoped that in future education will feature more prominently.

Support for the Global Partnershipfor Education: a welcome move
Given Italy’s overall low quality of aid contributions to theeducation sector, the move in the 2014 GPE replenishment to give acontribution of US$8.4 million to GPE was very much welcomed by
GCE Italy. While this is low compared to the contributions of other
donors – i.e. it is less than 1% of the total donor commitments to GPE
over the 2014–17 period79 – given the size of Italian aid to education
79. The total commitments are dependent on the UK contributions, which is fixed
to others at 15% of total fund.

this is a substantial and, moreover, a significant contribution. Signs so
far look good with Italy making their first disbursement in 2014-15.

Conclusions and recommendations
Moving forward and looking to the new post-2015 education agenda
the Italian government should:
•

•

•

•

•

•

Pursue in concrete terms the historical target of 0.7% ODA/GNI
without further postponement. The government can start to makethis real by following through on the public announcement toreach 0.3% ODA/GNI by 2017/18.
Keep improving aid quality and quantity in line with the newdevelopment cooperation legislation including, on education:• aid quality for education must be improved. One way to do
this in education is through continuing support to GPE, theonly multilateral fund dedicated to supporting country-led
education plans;• stick to and expand multi-stakeholder dialogue opportuni­ties
while the new legislation is put in place;• aim toward the devoted 20% of ODA to the education sector
and/or 10% of ODA to basic education at its implementation
stage.
Clearly define the role of the private sector in Italian devel­opment
cooperation, and not support the privatisation of education in thedeveloped world.
Improve aid data gathering around education to improve theclarity of purpose (especially around the category of ‘unallocatededucation’); and introduce and enforce new transparency standards:
the new http://openaid.esteri.it/en/ website is just the start, andneeds to be improved with up-to-date data.
Demonstrate commitment to education by ensuring high-levelparticipation in global education fora (such as the World Education
Forum, post-2015 negotiations and GPE conferences)
Clearly define development cooperation guidelines for education,
as has taken place in other development cooperation sectors.

Japan
Executive summary
Japan’s current five year education aid policy, which runs until
2015, clearly states that “quality education for all” and “educationin conflict and disaster affected countries” are the focus areas.
However, there is a gap between this written policy and actual
budget allocation and practices.
Japanese aid to education is highly skewed towards higher
education. Far too much aid money has been spent on scholarships
and student fees, and far too little support has been given to basic
education. In fact, Japan has the worst average record acrossthe 15 countries in this report for spending on basic education asa ratio of overall aid during the MDG-EFA period – when the
global focus has been on improving basic education. Aid quality to
education could also be significantly improved, as well as greater
support given to the Global Partnership for Education. However,in recent years there is an indication of improvement on some ofthese areas, with a healthier split of spending on basic and otherlevels of education, good allocations to LDCs and Africa, a focus
on some of the countries most in need educationally, and marginal
improvements to some indicators of quality (i.e. new commitments
to budget support and within education sector support).
Japan should increase its overall allocation of aid to basic
education, prioritise low-income countries and fragile states in aid
to basic education, expand financial support to basic education,and contribute more to GPE as one of the board members of
GPE. Japan should be ready for the post-2015 education agenda
by making new education aid policy, to start in 2016.

Overall aid trends
In 2014 Japan continued on the trajectory of having a relatively low
ODA/GNI ratio, and since 2007, the ODI/GNI ratios have stayedlargely stagnant (see Figure J1). Overall aid levels for Japan are fairly
low, with little substantial change during the 2000-2013 period, withthe average at around 0.20%, way below the 0.7% international target.
That said, after a dip in aid commitments in 2011 and 2012,
following the devastating earthquake and tsunami of March 2011,
there has been a slight rebound in 2013. This suggests that Japan isestablishing a renewed level of ambition in its development efforts.
However, Japan doesn’t have any overarching aid targets, having
replaced neither its 2005 commitment to reach a global aid volume of
US$10 billion by 2010, nor its 2008 commitment to double bilateral
aid to sub-Saharan Africa by 2012.

Education Aid Watch 2015

31

FIGURE J1: Japan Total ODA as % GNI, 2000–2014 trends
0.28%
0.23% 0.23%

0.25%

0.25%
0.23%

0.20%

0.20%

0.19%

0.15%

0.20%

0.19%
0.18%

0.17%

0.19%

0.18% 0.17%

0.10%
0.05%

20
00
20
01
20
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10
20
11
20
12
20
13
20
14

0%

Aid to education trends

FIGURE J3: Japan Total aid to basic education as % ODA
2002–2013

While Japan’s overall percentage of total aid to education is relatively
high, at 6.2% in 2013 (and averaging at 6.3% since 2002) – the fourth
lowest spend across the countries in this report, support to basic
education is incredibly low. Japan’s education aid budget is highly
skewed towards post-secondary education, with 38% of the Japanese
total expenditure on education aid spent at this level.

8.4%

1.9%

2.0%
1.5%
1.0%

2.6%

2.4%

2.5%

2.2%

2.0%

1.8%

2.0%

1.6%

1.3%
1.3%

1.6%

1.6%

0.5%

FIGURE J2: Japan Total aid to education as % total ODA
2002–2013

20
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10

0.0%

8.2%
7.2%
5.7%

7.2%

6.4%

5.8%

6.1%

6.3%

6.2%

6.3%

20
11
20
12
20
13

2.5%

20
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10

9%
8%
7%
6%
5%
4%
3%
2%
1%
0%

3.0%

20
11
20
12
20
13

0.30% 0.28%

fourth largest DAC donor.80 Given the large degree of focus on basic
education in all of these countries and, with much work still to bedone in terms of achieving universal primary education and improving
quality in basic education, it is hoped that significant increases inoverall ODA to these countries would lead to greater commitments.
Indeed, in 2013, half of the direct aid to basic education budgets went
to sub-Saharan Africa. Unsurprisingly, given historical and geographicalties, the remaining large commitment from Japan is allocated to Eastand South Asia. It should also be noted that two-thirds of all spendingon basic education was directed at LDCs in 2013 and this level has
been increasing in recent years – a commendable approach given the
reduction in basic education to LDCs by many other bilateral donors.
The GCE coalition in Japan hopes this trend will continue.

Japan spent an average of only 1.9% of its total aid budget on basic
education over the MDG-EFA period – the period during whichbasic education should have been prioritised, as part of the global goals.
This is the lowest average aid expenditure on basic education over thiswhole period of the 14 countries analysed in this report. However,significantly, since 2011 aid to basic education as a percentage of
ODA has been rising, and is currently at its highest level since 2002
(Figure J2), which is very encouraging news. Moreover, in spite ofstarting from a very low baseline, spending on basic education doubled
from 2012 to 2013 alone – partially as a result of new overall ODA
commitments; the good news is this far outstrips new commitments
and may suggest a renewed vigour behind basic education.
Notably, this may also be the result of a more focused commitment
to sub-Saharan Africa, with overall aid increasing by a quarter in 2013
alone to the region, and more than half of Japan’s ODA to Africa in2012 allocated to just 10 countries: Tanzania, Kenya, Ghana, Ethiopia,
Sudan, DRC, Senegal, South Sudan, Mozambique and Uganda. In
fact Japan has overtaken Germany to become sub-Saharan Africa’s

Still too much on scholarships andproject-based aid contributions
Japan has historically spent a lot of its aid to education at postsecondary level, and in ways which might not always support thepoorest or those most excluded to gain an education. However, thisdoes appear to be shifting. For instance, as the two pie charts below
show, in 2005 Japan was spending close to two-thirds (64%) of its total
aid to education budget on post-secondary education, only 23% on
basic education, and 12% on secondary. In 2013 this shifted towards
a much healthier split and ratio: 38% to post-secondary, 41% to basic
education and 21% to secondary.
In the past, Japan has also counted a large amount of scholarships
and inputted fees in its education aid; this stood at nearly half of direct
aid to education in 2010. The good news is that this is also decreasing,consuming only 27% of direct aid to education in 2013; while still
relatively high, this is an encouraging and significant shift in theright direction.

80. The DATA report 2014: Fighting Poverty and Financing Africa’s Future. Available
here: www.one.org/us/policy/data-report-2014/32

Global Campaign for Education

FIGURE J4: Japan Spending by level 2005 and 2013, US$millions (US$, constant 2013)

2013

2005
0
Aid to basic education
Aid to post-secondary

500

1,000

1,500

Aid to secondary education

Japan has a bad reputation – and deservedly so – on the quality of
its aid spending in other respects. This is showing signs of improving,
but project support remains the main modality of Japan’s aid to
education. Although capacity-building of teachers, construction ofclassrooms and development of curricula and textbooks are necessary,
Japan should also provide more financial support to education sectorplans, which would allow Japanese aid to contribute to reduce financial
gap for employing more teachers, and to improve effectiveness ofJapan’s support for capacity building of teachers and education agency
officials. While the quality of Japanese aid has improved in recent
years and moved away from a very heavy focus onprogramme-based
approaches, Japan still gives too little in General Budget Supportand sector support for education which can support the provisionof support to recurrent expenditure in education (for example
teachers’ salaries).
Japan is a Global Partnership for Education (GPE) board member,with an education development policy supportive of GPE. However,this has not necessarily been matched by commensurable levels ofaid giving to the GPE. At the 2014 GPE replenishment conference,
Japan only committed US$2.4 million over the replenishment period,
the third smallest contribution of the 18 total donors, and less than
1% of the total contributed amount. However, in spite of this small
contribution it is welcomed that Japan showed some continued
commitment to GPE.

Overall aid strategy and focus on
education

growth”, which is one of the three “priority issues” in the Charter,
saying “Japan will provide assistance necessary to promote people-centereddevelopment that supports basic human life, taking full account of theimportance of human and social development. It encompasses health care, safe
water and sanitation, food and nutrition, quality education for all, disparity
reduction, empowerment of women, culture and sports that brings about
spiritual affluence.” Education is also mentioned in the paragraph on
South Asia in “Priority policy issues by region” saying “Japan will also
extend cooperation on basic human needs such as health care, sanitation andeducation, and on socio-economic infrastructure development for narrowing
the gap between the rich and the poor”. Perhaps worryingly, there is noreference to basic education and education as a right in the Charter.
Japan announced its Education Cooperation Policy 2011-2015
in 2010.82 This education aid policy document shows three focus
areas: (1) Quality Education for All – Improving the Comprehensive
Learning Environment and Strengthening the Support to the FTI(current GPE), (2) Education for Knowledge-based Society –Promoting Centers for Vocational Training and Networks for Higher
Education, and (3) Education for Peace and Security: Education in
Conflict and Disaster Affected Countries. This policy document iswell-written; however, as data above shows, there is a gap between
policy and practice. It is expected that Japan will announce thenext education aid policy starting in 2016, which should reflect the
post-2015 education agenda.
Japan also committed to provide US$ 3.5 billion in the field of
education for five years from 2011. However, this commitment is total
education aid, including contribution to middle- and low- income
countries, and does not specify the level of aid to basic education.

Conclusions and recommendations
The Japan NGO Network for Education calls on the government to:• Increase aid to basic education: at an absolute minimum, Japan
should at least increase its average share of aid to basic education.
• Increase aid to education in low-income countries andfragile states.
• Improve the quality of aid by promoting a greater modality mix
in its aid giving - this would mean giving more budget support tocountries where Japan currently provides more technical assistance.
• Increase the current contribution to the Global Partnership for
Education.

Japan does not have any laws about ODA or development cooperation.
Instead, Japan has an ‘ODA charter’, which was approved by the
Cabinet.81 The ODA charter gives an overview of the overall aid
policy of Japan, and is revised every 10 years, of which the latest
one was approved February 2015. The new charter is now called
the “Development Cooperation Charter”, and the name change isindicative of the changing nature of development cooperation in
Japan, due to the view that development cooperation should not only
be given through ODA but also by the private sector. Education is
mentioned in “Quality growth and poverty eradication through such
81. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan (MOFA), Development Cooperation Charter For peace, prosperity and a better future for everyone, MOFA, 2015 www.mofa.go.jp/
files/000067701.pdf.

82. MOFA, Japan’s Education Cooperation Policy 2011-2015, MOFA, 2010www.mofa.go.jp/policy/oda/mdg/pdfs/edu_pol_ful_en.pdf

Education Aid Watch 2015

33

The Netherlands has been one of the few countries to meet andexceed the 0.7% aid target, but in 2013 aid fell below this – thefirst time since the 1970s. The Netherlands has also been a
consistent champion of education, especially basic education,
since the beginning of the MDGs. Historically it has been oneof the most instrumental donors in supporting the target of
ensuring all children can complete a primary education, both interms of financial and policy contributions, as well as political will.
However, since 2010, overall severe budget cuts, combined witha change of policy and of priorities in development cooperation,
have almost wiped out support to basic education. After massive
cuts to education aid budgets, the Netherlands plummetedfrom being the second highest donor of bilateral aid to basic
education in 2007 to 22nd of the 28 DAC donors in 2013.
Budgets decreased by 70% from 2010 to 2013 alone, while huge
cuts have taken place in support to low-income countries suchas Burkina Faso, Yemen, Bangladesh and Zambia.
By 2015 bilateral aid has been more or less totally phasedout. Only the international scholarship programme has beenspared, with limited budgets mainly spent on vocational andhigher education. The final commitments made to the Global
Partnership to Education are now completed – and there are
no new commitments on the horizon.

Overall aid trends
The Netherlands had achieved – and often exceeded – 0.7% every
year since the mid-1970s, but officially dropped off that list for the
first time in 2013. As part of overall government budget cuts, thedevelopment budget was gradually decreased between 2011 and 2015.
This brought aid as a percentage of GNI below 0.7% for the first timesince 1975. At the end of 2010, the new government announced amajor shift in development policy; this resulted in significant decreases
to the aid budget, as well as a change of priorities for the Dutch
government. Overall reductions in aid took the Netherlands fromspending 0.8% of GNI on aid in 2010 down to 0.64% in 2013.
While this is still well ahead of many other bilateral donors –Netherlands was still the fourth biggest aid donor as percentage of
GNI in 2013 – total ODA is expected to further decrease in absoluteamounts as well as in percentage of GNI, from €4.3 billion in 2013
to Euro €3.5 billion or 0.53% of GNI by 2017.83 The first reduction
in aid in 2011 was also accompanied by a decrease in the number of‘partner countries’ benefiting from bilateral aid, from 33 to 16.

83. Projections from Homogeneous Group on International Cooperation 2015 (forms
part of the general State budget 2015).

34

Global Campaign for Education

0.9%
0.8%
0.7%
0.6%
0.5%
0.4%
0.3%
0.2%
0.1%
0.0%

0.84%

0.82%

0.80%

0.82%

0.81%

0.82% 0.81%

0.81%
0.81%

0.80%

0.73%

0.75%

0.71%
0.67%

0.64%

20
00
20
0
20 1
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10
20
11
20
12
20
13
20
14

Executive summary

FIGURE NE1: The Netherlands Total ODA as % GNI,
2000–2014

Aid to education trends
These overall reductions in ODA have had a major impact on thelevel of aid that is available for different Dutch development priorities.
However, since 2010, education has taken a double hit: as well as
falling victim to the overall aid reductions, education has gone frombeing one of the top priorities of the Dutch government to being
completely phased out in policy as well as financial terms, with only
small pockets of projects and support to higher education remaining.
Most significantly, Dutch bilateral aid to basic education has now beeneffectively eliminated, as has the previously substantial education sector
support and the Dutch commitment to the Global Partnership for
Education (GPE).
This has led to dramatic reductions in the amount of Dutch aid
available to education. After an all-time peak in 2007, the Netherlands
went from being the third largest bilateral donor, to being 16th in2013. Reductions were even more dramatic in basic education: in2007 the Netherlands was the largest donor to basic education.84

FIGURE NE2: The Netherlands Total aid to education as %total ODA 2002–2013
18%
16%
14%
12%
10%
8%
6%
4%
2%
0%

16.4%

12.8%

12.4%

11.8%

11.3%
9.4%

8.2% 8.7%

7.6%

6.9% 6.0%
6.9%

20
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10
20
11
20
12
20
13

The Netherlands

The previous very high commitments from the Netherlands were
driven by the ground-breaking commitment made in 2001, when the
Dutch parliament passed a motion to increase aid expenditure for basic
education to 15% of aid overall. Although this percentage was neveractually realised, this decision implied a phenomenal level of support
84. This is using the ‘UNESCO calculation’ as outlined in Annex 1. This pulls up theoverall Dutch aid commitment to education, as the Dutch give such high levels ofbudget support. So while the USA was the largest basic education contributor of ‘direct aid to education’, Netherlands was the largest for ‘total’ aid to education, which
is a credit to their contributions to general budget support.

for basic education in the developing world. Investments in basic
education increased from US$276 million in 2002 to US$626 million
in 2007, accounting for an increase from 5.6% of total ODA in 2002
to 12.6% in 2007. The aim to invest 15% of aid in basic education
was abandoned after 2007. Despite the downward trend, still US$325
million, 6.4% of the total, was invested in basic education aid in 2010.
By 2012 the de-prioritisation of education had decreased this aid byalmost two-thirds to US$123 million, leaving just 2.4% of total ODA.
Finally it should also be noted that the Netherlands, in 2011, wasalso the largest donor in volume terms to early childhood care andeducation (ECCE).85 The huge cuts which have taken place since 2010
have seen the Netherlands plummet to 22nd place in 2013, in terms of
the quantity of their aid to basic education commitments.

FIGURE NE3: The Netherlands Total aid to basic education
as % ODA 2002–2013
14%

12.6%

12%

10.0%

10%
8%
6%
4%
2%

8.4%
6.9% 6.4%

5.6%
3.8%

4.7%

4.8%
5.1%

3.0% 2.4%

20
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10
20
11
20
12
20
13

0%

Major shifts in development polices
see education support phased out
The phasing out of aid to education was the result of it being deprioritised during a significant shift in the overall strategy and focus foraid away from supporting social sectors, and towards sectors which areseen as promoting economic development and trade.86 As part of thisthe Dutch government in 2010 announced its commitments to cut
all bilateral aid to basic education. Four new priorities were adopted:
security and the rule of law; food security; water management andimproved access to safe drinking water and sanitation; and sexual andreproductive health and rights (SRHR) and women’s rights. As part ofthis approach, a major role was foreseen for the private sector and foraid to also advance Dutch economic and trade concerns.
Since 2012, the Minister for Foreign Trade and Development
Cooperation has been situated within the Foreign Ministry, combining
what had previously been two Ministries – symbolic of a generalshift in development policy. The Dutch government claims that thisencourages a strong emphasis on policy coherence, with the newly
appointed Minister Ploumen claiming in 2012 that cuts would be‘offset’ by creating “more policy coherence for development”, and that theNetherlands will continue its role in promoting and implementing
the aid effectiveness agenda.87
In 2013, Minister Ploumen published her policy paper ‘A World
to Gain: A New Agenda for Aid, Trade and Investment’. Observing
that the education MDGs were ‘within reach’ she announced that
education aid in low- and middle-income countries would bephased out more quickly than had previously been envisaged. Only
the scholarship programme would be spared. The minister expected
other donors, and especially the EU, to step in: “In most cases where
the Netherlands’ programmes in social sectors (such as education and healthcare) are being phased out, the EU will remain the main donor.”88 This
has resulted in all bilateral aid to basic education being phased out,
leaving only a last contribution to GPE (€30 million) in 2014 and theexpenditures on the UNICEF Peacebuilding, Education and Advocacy
Programmes (€30 million a year). The effects of this policy can be seenin the specified budgets for education aid, as outlined above, and thefurther reduction in budgets in 2015 to €119 million in 2015.89 In
2015, using latest budget data from the Netherlands, this has dropped
down to as low as €30 million in 2015, and continues to decrease.
In the current development cooperation policy, the remaining
bilateral education aid is intended to be instrumental in achieving
results in other priority areas, and is focused on technical andvocational education and training (TVET) and higher education –for instance, supporting agricultural training or achieving results inthe priority areas Security and Rule of Law, Food-security, Waterand Sexual and Reproductive Health. More emphasis is given to
TVET and higher education. In countries like Mali, Bangladesh,
Uganda, Afghanistan and Ethiopia, vocational education and training(in agriculture) is supported as part of food security policies. In thecontext of the priority on security and rule of law, substantial support
is given to a UNICEF programme on Peacebuilding, Education and
Advocacy in 14 countries (PBEA, total commitment of €120 million
for 2012-2015). Although SRHR and enhancing women’s rights
are priorities in Dutch development policy, and combating violenceagainst women and child marriages are spearheads, no attention
whatsoever is given to girls’ education.
The shift in policy towards tertiary education was also describedin the 2014-2015 general State budget: “Increasing the number ofwell-educated professionals, strengthening of institutions for higher andvocational education, promotion of policy relevant research.” As such, thelarger share of the budget, about €76 million, is spent on international
higher education programmes and vocational training. A substantial
part of this budget is invested in scholarships for students fromdeveloping countries.
It should be noted that this massive shift away from education does
not reflect public opinion in the Netherlands, where 55% consider
that education should be a main priority for Dutch development
cooperation.90 Moreover, a 2011 publication Education matters: Policy
87. Concord, AidWatch 2014 - Aid beyond 2015: Europe’s role in financing andimplementing sustainable development goals post 2015, Jeffreson, 2015 www.concord-

europe.org/publications/item/374-aidwatch-2014

85. OECD-DAC, 2014.
86. Sectors are: agriculture; climate change; energy; environment; gender equality;
governance and anti-corruption; health, nutrition and population; information
communication and technology; private sector development; science, technology andinnovation; social development; social protection and labour; transport business; urban
and local government; water resources; and post-crisis direction. Ministry of Foreign
Affairs of the Netherlands, 2011.

88. This is taken from What the world deserves: A new agenda for aid, trade and investment by the Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, Lilianne
Ploumen, and is thus taken from national documents, is displayed in Euro, and using
categorisation by the Dutch government. The previous figures are taken from theOECD DAC database and thus use the DAC methodologies – as well as being expressed in US$. Hence, it should be noted these figures are not directly correlated.
89. Figures derived from the general State budget for 2015.
90. Kaleidos Research/NCDO, Financing for Development, now and in the future,
May 2015.

Education Aid Watch 201535

review of the Dutch contribution to basic education 1999–2009 provided
convincing evidence that Dutch support for basic education had
been, in general, highly relevant, well-aligned with other donors andparticularly supportive of the priorities of its partner countries. For
the future, the report recommended that aid efforts should focus on
the poorest countries and regions, where most is to be gained fromproviding basic education aid.91 Yet, in spite of this evidence and public
support, the government has continued the cut-back, and especially in
low-income countries.

form of funding while terminating Dutch bilateral education aid, andin so doing it was safeguarded from the drastic cuts happening in otherparts of bilateral spending. However, in line with the new development
policy, no new commitments for contributions to GPE were made atthe 2014 replenishment conference, and in 2015 the Dutch government
is giving no support to GPE.

Humanitarian aid

In a first letter to Parliament on the Dutch position on the post-2015
development agenda, the Minister for Foreign Trade and Development
expressed strong support for poverty reduction (“getting to zero in one
generation” was the precise phrase used) as a major goal of the post2015 agenda. It was stated that implementation of a ‘Social Protection
Floor’ should become a guarantee of access for all to social services(including education), equity and better income distribution. However,
the government has given no indication of how the Netherlands
would contribute to this part of the post-2015 agenda, given the factthat in the national development policy most support for social sectors
no longer exists.
As a member of the EU, the Netherlands subscribes to the EU
policy on the SDGs. In the negotiations leading to the UN Summit on
the SDGs, the Netherlands – not surprisingly – especially lobbies forgoals on gender and SRHR, and emphasises the contributions of tradeand private investments to sustainable development.

The Netherlands was the primary supporter of UNICEF’s Educationand Emergencies and Post-crisis Transition (EEPCT) programme andthe follow-on Peacebuilding, Education and Advocacy (PBEA) initiative.
EEPCT was a US$201 million programme that ran from 2006 to2011 and covered 42 countries (with all US$201 million provided by
the Dutch government, although an additional US$5.76 million was
contributed by the EU). The PBEA programme, 2012-2015, is fundedat US$150 million (€120 million) by the Netherlands and operates in 14
countries. These expenditures are registered as aid to education, but arecoded as peace-building, rather than humanitarian aid.
The Netherlands has been and is supporting education in
emergencies, largely through un-earmarked support to UN agencies,
NGOs and consolidated appeals. Humanitarian policy was revised in
September 2014 in the course of the establishment of a Relief Fund,
aimed at raising Dutch humanitarian assistance. There are no references
to education – or any other sector – which is a deliberate policy tomake Dutch humanitarian aid flexible, predictable and to enhance
response capacity of the main recipients. In 2014 a total amount of€329 million was spent on humanitarian aid, of which 54% consistedof un-earmarked contributions to mainly UN agencies; 46% was
earmarked for humanitarian aid by UN agencies and NGOs in acuteand chronic crises in specific countries or regions. The budget, forhumanitarian aid for 2015 is €375 million, but given the policy it isunclear how much money is invested in education.

Support to the Global Partnershipfor Education
As one of the initiators of the Global Partnership for Education (GPE),
in its previous form as the ‘EFA Fast Track Initiative’ (EFA-FTI), theNetherlands was a strong supporter and major contributor to GPE.
In fact, in 2008, the Netherlands was its largest contributor (about
US$400 million).
The Netherlands was a critical but loyal partner in the reform
process of the FTI, helping shape the current GPE, and lent its full
support to GPE policy and priorities. However, with the change ofpolices above the government also cut support to the GPE. In 2011, theformer government made a commitment to contribute €30 million ayear over four years (2011 through 2014) to GPE. To Parliament, thefinancial contribution to GPE was presented as an important alternative

91. Policy and Operations Evaluation Department (IOB), Education matters: Policy
review of the Dutch contribution to basic education 1999–2009, Ministry of Foreign
Affairs of the Netherlands, 2011.

36 Global Campaign for Education

Post-2015 education agenda

Conclusions and recommendations
GCE Netherlands sees four priority areas for action by the
Dutch government:
•

•

•

•

Secure substantial budgets for technical and vocational training toachieve results in priority areas in national development policy:
peace and security; food security; water; and especially in SRHR
and women’s rights. Given the well-documented socioeconomic
impact of female education, educating girls is a crucial successfactor in achieving equal rights and opportunities for women andcombating child marriage and should therefore be part of thestrategy for these priority areas.
Demonstrate a strong Netherlands stance for education as apriority in EU aid and the post-2015 agenda, as a prerequisite
for gender equality and enhancing SRHR. Reconsider support
for GPE as the main Dutch contribution to financing post-2015
education goals, especially in low-income countries.
Promote measures to increase domestic budgets for educationand health in developing countries. The Netherlands’ policy on
Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation should include
strong measures to increase domestic tax revenues in developing
countries (for instance by addressing tax evasion by multinationals)
and supporting alternative sources of financing for development(for instance by a financial transaction tax).
Given the fact that the amount of time refugees are forced tostay outside of their own country is, on average, 19 years, work
to prevent the lost generations of children that miss their chanceof an education, and make humanitarian aid sustainable byearmarking 4% of this aid for education.

Norway
Executive summary
Norway has an excellent record on its overall aid giving. Long
recognised as a global leader on aid, Norway has also madesignificant commitments to supporting education over the MDGEFA period, but possibly most significantly, Norway has excelledin its support to basic education. Universal primary education andgirls’ education – EFA goals 2 and 5, and MDGs 2 and 3 – havereceived particular attention from Norwegian aid, with a strongemphasis on fragile and conflict-affected countries, and supporting
countries’ own education plans. Overall, and despite its smaller
size compared to many donor countries, Norway has remained
one of the top funders of education during the MDG-EFA period,and one of those most focused on basic education - not only interms of the quantity of that aid, but also in terms of the qualityof the aid given. Within the overall aid to education budget, basic
education gets a sizable share of the total budget – and this isrising – with over 70% of this dedicated to basic education.

Norway also has had a fairly solid commitment to its overall aid
to education; over the MDG-EFA period the average spending wasabove 9% and kept fairy steady around the 10% mark until 2008,
when it began to reduce. Since 2008, there has been a reduction in
the share of aid to education, despite increases in its overall ODA after
2008; in 2013, aid to education stood at 7% of total aid spent – thelowest registered percentage of Norwegian ODA in the MDG-EFA
period (Figure N2). This is a cause for concern. However, it should be
noted that while Norwegian aid to education has stagnated in absoluteterms, and reduced as a share of the aid budget, basic education has
remained a priority and has not been as badly hit as the overall aid to
education contribution. Indeed, Norway continues to demonstrate its
commitment to education, with an announcement in July 2015 by thePrime Minister that the government will double aid to education by
the end of 2017.

FIGURE N2: Norway Aid to education as % total ODA,
2002–2013
14%
12%
10%
8%
6%

FIGURE N1: Norway Total ODA as % GNI 2000–2014
1.2%

0.8%

0.80%

10.3%
9.9%

8.1%

10.0%
9.7%

9.0%
8.5%

9.3%
8.3%
7.0%

2%

0.94%
0.95%
0.89%
0.89%

1.06% 1.05%
0.96% 0.93%

1.07%
0.99%

0.76%

0.6%
0.4%
0.2%

20
00
20
0
20 1
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10
20
11
20
12
20
13
20
14

0%

Aid to education
In 2000, following global agreement of the MDGs and EFA goals, theNorwegian government declared education as a key priority within its
overall ODA. Accordingly, during the 2001 to 2002 period, it was oneof the three biggest DAC donors to education and, by 2004, 11.8% of
Norway’s total aid budget was committed to education.

0%

20
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10
20
11
20
12
20
13

Norway has an excellent record on overall ODA commitments.
Norway is one of few countries in the world that does not just meet,but exceeds the globally agreed target of spending 0.7% of national
income on development assistance. Since 2000 it has consistently
allocated over 0.7% of Gross National Income (GNI) to aid, andgives the highest average across the 15 countries in this report over
the MDG-EFA commitments. In 2013 this reached an all-time peakof 1.07%. However, this dropped down to 0.99% in 2014 – still thehighest ranking ODA/GNI donor in this report.

0.89% 0.92% 0.87%

10.2%

4%

Overall aid trends

1.0%

11.8%
9.4%

Norwegian aid to basic education
Norway excels in its support to basic education. Universal primaryeducation and girls’ education – EFA goals 2 and 5, and MDG goals 2
and 3 – have received particular attention from Norwegian aid, with astrong emphasis on fragile and conflict-affected countries. Overall, anddespite its smaller size compared to many donor countries, Norway hasremained one of the top funders of education during the MDG-EFA
period, and one of those most focused on basic education - not only interms of the quantity of that aid, but also in terms of the quality of theaid given. Within the overall aid to education budget, basic education
gets a sizable share of the total budget – and this is rising.
Norway has spent an average of 6.1% of aid to basic education as apercentage of total aid since 2003. However, it should be noted there has
been a recent drop in this, with this reducing to 5.2% in 2013 – similar
relative levels to its aid to basic education before it began to rise in 2003.
In 2013, around 74% of all aid to education was spent insupporting basic education; this is significantly higher than mostother donors, and over the MDG-EFA era this increased by 20
percentage points (Table 1). Despite the slight reductions in overall
aid levels to education, Norway has maintained a focus on supportingchildren to get a good quality basic education; the share of education
aid to basic education has been increasing in recent years – although
overall funding has been reduced, this means aid to basic education
has been reduced less sharply. Norway should be commended forsuch strong commitments to basic education over the whole of the
MDG period.

Education Aid Watch 201537

Norway also gives a sizable amount of its aid to education to subSaharan Africa and to least developed countries, especially comparedto many other donors. About one quarter of aid to basic education isdedicated to least developed countries, or sub-Saharan Africa. That said,
Norway also gives a sizable amount to lower-middle income countries,
and middle-income countries: this is as much a sign of how thinly
spread Norway’s aid approach tends to be in terms of being spread
across a large amount of countries.
As noted above total aid to basic education is very high, yetinterestingly there was a sudden spike in spending on post-secondary
education in 2013, which is a new trend, and something worth
monitoring in future.

Table N1: Norway Percentage of aid to education spent on
basic education
2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

55%

62%

62%

65%

61%

65%

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

67%

67%

66%

72%

72%

74%

FIGURE N3: Norway Aid to basic education as % total ODA
2002–2013
8%

7.4%

7%
6%
5%
4%

6.6%

6.7%
6.1%

5.1%

6.7%

6.4%

5.9%

6.1%

6.0%
5.2%

5.0%

3%
2%
1%

20
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10
20
11
20
12
20
13

0%

Some important results have been achieved in countries that havereceived Norwegian assistance. For example, Nepal, where Norway
has supported the government’s primary education programme, hasmore than halved the proportion of children out of school since
2000; increased transition rates from primary to lower-secondary; andmade significant progress in achieving literacy for girls and women.
For several years, Norway has also been a champion of education in
emergency contexts. In Afghanistan, a Norwegian priority country,
Norway’s contribution has helped 8 million children to go to school
since the start of the century, with increasing progress for girls. While
Norwegian aid in general has tended to lack a concrete focus and,as such, has been spread across a variety of education themes andcountries, Norway has showed a positive emphasis on aligning withnational priorities. A good part of the funding has been committed
towards basic education, with a focus on supporting teachers,
textbooks and schools. Almost as importantly, while some countries
have been suffering from the withdrawal of their major donors, as
outlined in Section 1, Norway has been an important donor in somecountries where major bilateral donors have been exiting in recent
years. This has helped to stem some of the recent losses by other
donors, especially donors who had previously given high quality aid

in support of basic education through sector support or long-term
support to education plans, by continuing to support governments’
own efforts. For instance, in Cambodia, which has lost three of its main
donors since 2008, Norway has increased its commitment to education
ten-fold, helping to fill the holes in education budgets left by others.

Norway and the Global Partnershipfor Education
Norway has been, and continues to be, an important contributor to
the Global Partnership for Education. At the 2014 replenishment
conference, which aimed to raise money for the period 2015-18,
Norway made the fourth largest commitment, totalling US$215.6
million – or nearly 11% of the total fund allocations. Indeed, between
them, the top five donors – the European Union, Sweden, Denmark,Norway and the United Kingdom – pledged around 77% of the total
US$2.1 billion for the GPE Fund.92

Looking towards the post-2015
agenda and conclusions
While numerous international development partners – including
previous donor champions such as Denmark and the Netherlands –are reducing or completely withdrawing bilateral education support,
Norway has stepped up. In a recent White Paper, ‘Education for
Development’, the government has pledged to reignite its commitment
to education – as it first demonstrated in the period immediately
after the Dakar World Education Forum in 2000. During post-2015
discussions during the UN General Assembly in September 2014,
Prime Minister Erna Solberg announced that Norway will double its
financial commitment to quality education over the following three
years. The commitment to double aid to education was affirmed at
the Oslo Summit on Education for Development in July 2015. In
addition to an emphasis on quality, the government will focus on
girls’ education, fragile states, and strengthening collaboration withcivil society, and has reiterated its overall commitment to principles
of national ownership and sustainability.

92. This is if UK fulfils its full commitment.

38 Global Campaign for Education

Executive summary
As a relative newcomer to the aid scene, Korea’s contribution toeducation aid is a welcome addition to the global effort to achieve
education for all. Korea gives well above the average percentage
of its ODA to education; it recently hosted the World Education
Forum; and, in 2014, pledged to become a new donor to the
Global Partnership for Education. However, there are lessons
which could be learned, and areas which could be improved.
Korea’s aid to education is skewed towards post-secondary
education, with far too little support for basic education. Aid
quality to education needs to undergo reform in order to ensure
clear objectives and goals for strengthening education quality forpartner countries and their people.
There is a need to increase aid to basic education. Korea also
needs to increase the allocation of education aid to low-income
and fragile states, and to keep up with the DAC average. Thereis also a need to bring greater harmony to the overall aid to
education strategy and move past a fragmented project-based
approach. The new post-2015 goals offer an opportunity to takethe newfound role for Korea as a champion of global education
to a new level – and become one the more significant players
moving forward.

Overall Aid Trends93
Since the Fourth Busan High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness(HLF-4) in 2012, the Republic of Korea, a relative newcomer to theglobal aid scene, has received considerable international attention – andrightly so. Korea’s aid has experienced a steady increase from 0.05%
of its gross national income (GNI) in 2006 to 0.13% of GNI in
2014, while many major donors have been decreasing the volumeof their aid. 2011 marks an important turning point for Korea’s
aid as it surpassed US$1 billion for the first time. Several years ofconstant growth saw Korea’s ODA reaching US$1.325 billion in 2011(equivalent to 0.12% of its GNI), compared to US$455 million in2006 (equivalent to 0.05% of its GNI).
More importantly, the Republic of Korea seems to be politicallycommitted to increasing its aid budget after joining the Organization
for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Numerous
Korean government officials have repeatedly expressed their
expectations that there appears to be ample financial scope for theplanned increases in its aid volume,94 in light of Korea’s expected rateof economic growth over the medium term of 3 to 3.5%.95

93. All International Comparative Statistics are from OECD, unless specified (suchas the data from Prime Minister Office and Korea National Research Foundation)www.odakorea.go.kr/oz.main.ODAMain.do
94. National Research Institute for Law and Re-shaping Development Institute(ReDI) Korea’s Provincial Government’s ODA: Current Statues and Challenges, National Research Council for Economics, Humanities and Social sciences(NRSC), 2015.
95. OECD, Development Assistance Peer Review: Korea 2012, OECD 2012.

However, the Korean government had officially stated its intention
to meet 0.25% of GNI allocated to aid by 2015; this has not happened,
and now the overall growth of aid seems under threat. Rather thanmaking progress, the current government has been slowing its pace inincreasing aid budgets, and there is now very little chance of reaching
the target on time.

FIGURE RK1: Republic of Korea Total ODA as % GNI
2000–2014
0.16%
0.14%
0.12%
0.10%
0.10%
0.10%
0.09%
0.07%
0.08%
0.06%
0.06%
0.06%
0.06%
0.05%
0.05%
0.04%
0.04%
0.02%
0%

0.14%
0.12%
0.12%

0.13% 0.13%

20
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20
01
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14

Republic of Korea

Aid to education trends
Korean support for education for all has varied in the MDG-EFA
period. From 2008 through to 2011, spending on education increased
considerably. Aid to education in 2013 was 15.7% of the total aid
budget – beating the donor average of 15.6%. This makes Korea
the third largest donor, on average across the 12 countries in thisreport on aid to education, and it is well above the average across all
DAC donors.96 It should be noted, however, that the 15.7% of aid to
education in 2013 was in fact a decrease on the 2012 commitment,
which was 17.1%; more work is necessary to maintain levels, and somedegree of greater consistency in spending.
Not only should the overall budget on aid to education maintaina minimum level of expenditure of 15% of total aid budget, but,
ultimately, Korea should aim to spend 20% of its ODA on education,
as advocated by the Global Campaign for Education.
When closely examining the modalities of Korea’s educationaid, a series of practical and technical challenges is found. Only alimited amount of Korea’s aid goes to its partner countries throughbudget support, which limits Korea’s role in and long-term support
for strengthening partner countries’ overall systems – leading toa lack of support for recurrent expenditure in education, such asteachers’ salaries.
While Korea’s overall percentage of total aid spent on
education is relatively high, it is also important to emphasise that its
commitment to basic education is low, at an average of 3% of ODA.

96. For Korea, aid-to-education tracking is only possible from 2006, due to joining
the OECD DAC community later, and so while other donors are assessed from2002–2013 Korea is only tracked from 2006–2013 for this report.

Education Aid Watch 2015

39

FIGURE RK2: Republic of Korea Aid to education as % total
ODA 2006–2013
25%
20.7%

20%
15%

16.1%

14.3%

17.7%

17.1%

15.7%

12.3%

11.5%

10%
5%

20
13

20
12

20
11

20
10

20
09

20
08

20
07

20
06

0%

FIGURE RK3: Republic of Korea Aid to basic education as% ODA 2006–2013
4.3%
3.4%

A consolidated education aid strategy
in a fragmented aid system?
20
13

20
12

20
11

2.4%

20
10

20
09

20
08

20
07

2.0%

3.3%

3.1%

2.9%

2.6%

20
06

4.5%
4.0%
3.5%
3.0%
2.5%
2.0%
1.5%
1.0%
0.5%
0%

Over-emphasis on post-secondary
education
The direction of Korea’s aid to education shows a high level of focus
on post-secondary education, accounting for 42% of total of aid to
education in 2013; basic education and secondary education madeup only 15.55% and 21%, respectively.
The high level of spending on post-secondary education is dueto the large amounts spent on technical and vocational education andtraining (TVET), and on scholarships, which is being counted in theofficial aid budget to education via imputed student costs. Moreover,
it is important to note that a significant volume of Korea’s total aid
to education is known to have been spent on scholarships for foreign
students studying in Korea, although figures and current status are notofficially reported in detail. Korea’s major grant aid agency, KOICA,
for instance, has a strong focus on ‘secondary education’, althougha working definition of ‘KOICA’s secondary education’ is often
understood to be synonymous with TVET projects.

Who benefits from Korea’s aid
to education?
The three key beneficiaries of Korean aid in are stated in the
Framework Act on International Development Cooperation(Framework Act) and the Presidential Decree which came into force
in July 2010, as vulnerable and marginalised women, children, anddisabled people, but there are no mechanisms included to ensure

40

Global Campaign for Education

support for those three groups. Also, there is no framework forincluding indicators to measure the achievements of this principle,
and there are no indicators to measure how many or what kindof marginalised populations are being supported by Korea’s aid to
education. In short, Korea’s strategies for aid to education lack any
measurable targets, meaning that there are no indicators by which thegovernment can track progress or by which civil society organisations
can hold them accountable.
However, it is clear that, overall, Korean aid to education is skewed
in a way which is not obviously benefitting the most marginalised andpoorest: 46% of Korea’s aid went to middle-income countries in 2013,
and as seen above Korea’s aid to education is heavily focused on postsecondary education, making it unlikely that a substantial proportionis going to the poorest or most marginalised. Korea’s President Park
Geun-hye herself declared at the UN General Assembly in 2014 that“educational assistance in conflict zones or vulnerable countries is often
perceived as ‘important’, there is no clear evidence to show whether
Korea’s aid to education is reaching out the most marginalised areasand communities.”

Since the first Korean law on international development, The
Framework Act on International Development Cooperation, was establishedin 2010, the issue of fragmentation has been at the centre of heateddebates in Korea’s development scene. Since 2010, the Prime Minister’s
Office has gradually expanded its involvement in the coordination ofmajor ODA stakeholders. On the surface, there seems to be increasingsystematic cooperation between ministries and agencies. In reality,
there are growing concerns about a proliferation in the numberof ministries and affiliated institutes that are directly involved indelivering development projects.
The challenges of Korea’s inherent aid management system
directly affect the education aid system. Without prior consultation,
education-related projects are being formulated and designed byvarious ministries such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoF), theKorea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), the Ministryof Strategy and Finance (MOSF), Economic Development Cooperation
Fund (EDCF), the Export-Import Bank of Korea (EXIM Bank), theMinistry of Education, and many other ministries and provincial
governments. Indeed, more than 30 ministries and agencies are
currently engaged in ODA activities, with at least 27 provincial anddistrict level government bodies providing more than 176 ODA
activities between 2010 and 2013. Given provincial government
commitments to education is relatively high at 35% (85 education
projects) in relation to the overall percentage of total aid in 2010, thishas serious implications for harmonisation and alignment.97
In spite of this fragmented system, the strategic orientation of
Korea’s aid to education can be seen in various ODA policies andstrategies such as the Strategic Plan, the Country Partnership Strategy(CPS), the Mid-Term ODA Policy (2011–2015), and Consolidated

97. This is according to the Re-shaping Development Institute (ReDI) and the
Korea Legislation Research Institute (KLRI)’s joint research “Korea’s Provincial
Government’s ODA: Current Status and Challenges” (National Research Council for
Economics, Humanities and Social sciences: 2015).

Annual Implementation Plan. It is expected that a new ‘consolidated’
education ODA strategy – embracing the education issues from theperspective of the whole-of-government principle – will be developedin late 2015. Nevertheless, there remains general scepticism regarding
how comprehensive and consolidated Korea’s new strategy will bein practice.

Korea’s country and thematic focuses
In 2013, the top 10 recipient countries of Korea’s aid were:Vietnam,
Afghanistan, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Bangladesh, Indonesia,
Mozambique, the Philippines, and Mongolia. The top 10 countries
received 53% of the total aid. Korea has often been criticised for its
strong trend for tied aid, and for distributing small amounts of its aid
budget to a large number of recipient counties (especially to MICs,
as noted above) resulting in ineffectiveness: this has been highlighted
in various evaluations conducted in recent years. 40% of its total
spending was allocated to 28 countries in Asia (21 from Asia andseven from Oceania).
Korea’s allocations through bilateral and multilateral funding
channels are roughly based on a ratio of 70:30; in 2013 this was
75:25. It is uncertain how this rule applies to the education sector.
The government’s multilateral commitment to the education sector isplanned in a coordinated manner among education grant-providing
ministries, and recent commitments to the Global Partnership for
Education (GPE) have been welcomed, with President Park Geun-hye
at the United Nations General Assembly in 2014 announcing that
Korea had joined the GPE, with a contribution of US$5 million to
the Fund. While this is a small overall contribution, this is a significant
step forward for Korean government in demonstrating its multilateralcommitment for basic education. This step was warmly welcomed by
the Global Campaign for Education. It is hoped this display of support,
as well as the hosting of the 2015 World Education Forum, heralds
a new era of global leadership by Korea in education for all.

Conclusions and recommendations
With the introduction of the new development goals and their strong
focus on universality in 2015, this is a critical year for Korea to not
only develop and implement new aid policies and projects, but also
to outline a more deliberate approach to education – including thespecification of beneficiaries, and defining sensible ways of working in
Korea to deliver this vision.
It is recommended that the following measures be adopted by the
Korean Ministries involved in global education:•••

Increase aid to basic education. Korea should move towards
spending at least half of its total aid to education commitment on
basic education.
At a program level, Korea, and especially the Ministry of Education,needs to apply various education aid modalities in its aid giving– moving away from technology transfer, policy consulting, andreceiving students with aid scholarships, and towards creating more
opportunities for building national education systems, education
for humanitarian programmes, special funds for urban children
and youth, and many others. Korea now needs to re-consider
moving away from infra-focused, technical and scholarship-related
aid and towards more mid-long term education system building
and community-focused outreach. This will improve the qualityof Korean education aid in the long run, meaning less tied aid,
more budget support and mid-long term programmes to countries
where Korea currently provides mostly standalone activities or
short-term projects.
Develop a more consolidated aid strategy for education, and to use
the opportunity presented by the post-2015 agenda to achieve this.

Education Aid Watch 201541

SpainFIGURE S1: Spain Total ODA as % GNI 2000–2014
0.5%

In the context of the Eurozone crisis that has affected Spain in thelast few years, development cooperation has been affected to thepoint where it has effectively been dismantled, both in relation to
the amount of ODA, and in relation to its quality. Spain has gonefrom 0.46% ODA/GNI in the 2009, to 0.17% in 2013 – with
provisional DAC data for 2014 showing a further decrease.
Such a significant reduction in overall aid has been reflected
in allocations to education. In 2008, assistance to education wasalmost 8% of total ODA; in 2013, Spain reached an all-time lowof 2.6% of total assistance.
Regarding basic education, there has also been a worrying
regression, with some of the worst numbers of the last decade– moving away from the Spanish Committee on International
Development Cooperation recommendation urging Spain toreach 8% of total ODA for basic education. This number, whichaccording to DAC data was 3.5% in 2008, plummeted to 0.9%
in 2013.
Beyond ODA amounts, Spain’s giving to basic educationand to countries most in need is also weak, particularly given
the commitment made by Spain to supporting the EFA
Framework for Action, and demands a review of sector andgeographical distribution.

Overall Aid Trends
Spain has been feeling the impact of the Eurozone economic crisis forsome years now. This has severely affected its development cooperationcommitments, leading to a worrying reduction in both the amount of
ODA Spain contributes and in the quality of that aid. In fact, Spain has
gone from allocating 0.46% of its GNI to ODA in 2009, to 0.17% in2013 – a dramatic reduction. This looks set to get worse: provisional
data from DAC for 2014 shows ODA at 0.14%, a figure which has notbeen reached since 1989.
Furthermore, there are a number of challenges in terms of realisingcommitments to improve ODA quality. The 2011 DAC report set out
a number of important recommendations for improvement, including
defining a cooperation policy with civil society organisations,improving aid transparency and predictability, and drawing together
a decentralised cooperation policy.

0.4%
0.3%

0.30% 0.26%
0.22%

0.27%

0.45% 0.46% 0.43%

0.32%

0.29%

0.23% 0.24%

0.16% 0.18%

0.2%

0.14%

0.1%
0%

20
00
20
01
20
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10
20
11
20
12
20
13
20
14

Executive summary

0.37%

Aid to education trends
Such a significant reduction in overall ODA has impacted on aid forthe education sector, both in overall quantity terms and as a percentage
of total ODA. In overall quantity terms, as Figure S2 shows, this has
dramatically reduced since 2008 – by more than 80%. In terms of theoverall percentage of ODA, after a drop in 2009 when aid to education
took a particularly large hit (along with other social sectors), there
was actually a brief rise in 2011, but then another steep decline to6.8% of ODA in 2013. This appears to show that while overall aid
for education was initially reduced more than for other sectors due
to a change in aid policy, there was a brief respite in this reduction,
as aid as a whole continued to plummet.
Regarding basic education, there has also been a worrying
reversion to some of the worst numbers of the last decade, moving
away from the recommendation made by the Development
Cooperation Commission of the Spanish Congress of Deputies in a
motion – that was passed by the Spanish government in 2006 – that
8% of total ODA be committed for basic education. This number,which according to DAC data was 3.5% in 2008, reached a poor 0.9%
in 2013.
Beyond ODA amounts, the commitment made by Spain to
supporting the EFA Framework for Action demands a review of sector
and geographical distribution, in order to increase percentages assigned
to basic education and, to a greater extent, to those countries whichstill have a long way to go to ensure the right to education.

FIGURE S2: Spain Aid to education 2002–2013, US$millions (US$, constant 2013)
600
354.5

500

481.6

400
300
200
100

252.3
217.8

369.2
373.8

153.8 258.5
179.6

263.2
110.0

80.0

20
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10
20
11
20
12
20
13

0

42

Global Campaign for Education

FIGURE S3: Spain Aid to education as a % of total ODA,
2002–2013

FIGURE S5: Spain Aid to basic education 2002–2013,
US$ millions (US$, constant 2013)

14%

300

11.5%

11.0%

9.4%

10%

9.8% 10.0%

10.6%

9.5%

8.0%

6.8%

6%

50

2%

73.7

98.5

93.2

97.7

57.8 50.9

43.3
34.7

0

20
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10
20
11
20
12
20
13

20
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10

0%

Despite the fact that at a strategic and institutional level Spainremains committed to supporting education, specifically through the
EFA Framework for Action, this data confirms that there has beena loss of support from Spanish development cooperation to education.
In 2013 investment in education was reduced to from 9.9% to
6.8%. In addition, the way in which countries have been prioritisedby the Spanish government is failing to target the poorest countries in
the world. The ten countries which receive the most aid for educationfrom Spain (in the order of amount of aid received) are: Morocco,
Brazil, Peru, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nicaragua, Bolivia,
Guatemala, Palestine, Dominican Republic, and India.
Direct aid to basic education (according to UNESCO data) in 2013
represented 19% of total ODA to education, failing to reach US$11
million, and the percentage of total ODA which is spent on supporting
basic education has fallen to just 3% in 2013, compared to 5.2% in 2007.
The reduction in cooperation to education from the Autonomous
Communities (states – effectively, decentralised cooperation) of Spain
is particularly important; DAC figures combine the federal ODA
budget and ODA from the Autonomous Communities and, historically,education had received much support from them. Although it has
been proportionally maintained at around 15% of resources, thetotal amounts have dropped considerably, from a total of €49 million
in 2008 to €11 million in 2013 – an 80% reduction in a five-year
period. This huge reduction has significantly damage Spain’s giving
to education. Basic education has also suffered a proportional fall in
relation to the total ODA, reaching less than 2% in 2013.

FIGURE S4: Spain Aid to education as a % of total ODA,
2002–2013
6%

5.2%

5%

3%

205.5 210.1

150
100

4%

4%

185.5

200

8.1% 8.4%

8%

249.0

250

9.9%

4.2%

3.9%
3.0%

4.9%

4.5%

4.7%

3.6%

2.7%

3.9% 3.9%
3.0%

20
11
20
12
20
13

12%

Overall aid strategy and focus
on education
The Fourth Master Plan (IV Plan Director) is the strategic document
which guides the Spanish cooperation for the period 2013–2016.
In this plan, education is included in the Strategic Orientation 4:“To promote social cohesion systems, focusing on basic social services.”
Furthermore, the Education Strategy (year 2007) is available, which
guides action on education through the commitments made throughthe EFA Framework for Action. Under the priority of the ‘Human
Right to Basic and Quality Education for All’ (Fourth Master Plan,p.45), “to improve the quality of education” is prioritised, primarily
through the “training of teachers, the strengthening of the institutions
for the planning and management of education policies, supporting ofaccess and completion of the basic education stages.”
An analysis of the strategic framework of cooperation to education,
the planned development proposals, and the actual actions andresources allocated to education show a clear gap. Data shows a severe
investment reduction in basic social service (especially in education),
which is worrying in total terms, but is even more worrying in
relation to the loss of proportional relevance, given that this has fallenfrom over 10% in 2007 to 6.8% in 2013, and for basic education from
5.2% in 2007 to 3% of total ODA in 2013.
One more factor worth noting: in the last few years there has beena large growth in the aid spent as ‘unallocated education’ which has
increased from 39% in 2010 to 59% of total ODA for education in
2013. This is concerning, as it is difficult to track where this is being
spent, and may well indicate a shift away from areas such as basic
education, which should be a priority.
In conclusion, the fall in funds, both those of the State General
Administration and those of the Autonomous Communities – where
calls and grants have been closed – make aid unpredictable and,
therefore, more difficult to manage, and less effective in its outcomes.

2%
1%
20
11
20
12
20
13

20
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10

0%

Education Aid Watch 201543

Looking towards the post-2015
education agenda
The drastic cuts and the weakening of development cooperation
policies have caused a reduction of Spain’s presence in international
discussion fora, leading to a reduced political and technical profile.
In the case of the Global Partnership for Education, Spain had
historically been the fourth largest contributor – with 9.9% of
the fund’s total – in terms of funds committed and expenditure.
However, at the 2014 GPE replenishment conference Spain made nocontribution. Likewise, its presence at a political level in support ofGPE has also fallen.
On a positive note, the consultation process of the Spanish proposal
for the post-2015 agenda has included the participation of civilsociety organisations, and it is hoped that the Spanish government
will adhere to the demands spelled out for the education sector whenparticipating in the UN Summit on the SDGs. The discussion space ismaintained with other civil society and education sector organisations
through the Education Sectoral Coordination Board, working on the
Spanish position on the post-2015 agenda, which is to consider theright to education as a global public benefit, with the recognition ofStates’ obligation to guarantee and comply with the commitments ofeducation for all.

Conclusions and recommendations
The amount of ODA spent on education, as well as the prioritisationof countries and type of programmes, show both a lack of priority
to basic education and, worse, the reduction in Spain’s relevance as adonor to education – resulting in its loss of legitimacy in the defence
of international commitments to development in education.
Nonetheless, Spain still has the opportunity to renew its
commitment to universal and quality education, and must ensure thata central position for education is maintained in the SDGs, and that itconstitutes a goal in itself.
Likewise, it is necessary to stop the disproportionate reduction
which the Spanish cooperation budget is suffering – at both State andAutonomous Communities levels – and to go back to the path ofassigning 0.7% of GDP. Specifically for education, it should reach therecommendation of the Committee for International Development
Cooperation to assign 8% of total bilateral ODA to basic education.
Governments have the responsibility for providing sufficient funds toachieve fair, inclusive, quality education and lifelong learning for all,including the use of fair and progressive taxes.

44 Global Campaign for Education

United Kingdom
Executive summary
The UK government is a star performer in terms of its overall
aid giving, and, specifically, its aid to education. A substantial
proportion – over 13% – of overall aid goes to education, andover the MDG-EFA period the UK has been one of the mostconsistent good performers in this respect.
A substantial amount of UK education aid goes to lowincome countries and to countries with the highest out-of
school numbers. The UK has also been a consistently supportive
donor to the Global Partnership for Education (GPE), giving
substantial support to the fund – that said, while the recent
UK government’s pledge to the GPE is welcome, GCE UK
encourages the UK to continue funding GPE in a flexible way,that seeks to promote GPE as the leading model of multilateral
aid support to education systems.
Recently the Department of International Development(DfID) developed a Disability Framework, and it is hoped this will
help the British government to prioritise the needs of persons withdisabilities in its own education work, and be a global champion ofthis cause. However, at present, the UK is only investing 0.18% of
aid to basic education on Early Childhood Care and Development(ECCD), and more could be done in this area.
Looking to the post-2015 education agenda, GCE UK urges
DfID to continue to lead the world on funding to education
both bilaterally and multilaterally, and to ensure that all
funding aligns with and promotes the education goal within the
SDG framework.

Overall aid trends
The UK government continues to be a leader in global development.
It is the second largest donor of bilateral aid in terms of gross funding(after the US) and is the only member of the G7 to have reached thehistoric target of spending 0.7% of gross national income (GNI) on
development.
ODA as a proportion of GNI has been rising steadily since 2000
(Figure UK1) and in 2014 Britain reached the 0.7% target for the firsttime. In March 2015 the Government passed a bill that committed thecountry to spend at least the same proportion of GNI on aid each year.
For the parliament between 2010 and 2015, the UK government’s
priority sectors have been education; health; economic growth andthe private sector; governance and conflict-reduction; climate andenvironment; and water and sanitation.

FIGURE UK1: United Kingdom Total ODA as % GNI
2000–2014
0.70% 0.71%
0.57% 0.56%0.56%

0.32% 0.32% 0.31% 0.34%

0.36%

FIGURE UK4: United Kingdom Total aid to basic education
3.9% ODA 2002–2013
as % total

0.51%

0.51%
0.43%
0.36%

10%
8%

FIGURE UK2: United Kingdom Total aid to education
2002–2013, US$ millions (US$, constant 2013)
2,000
1477.31

1,500

500

230.8

339.4

1074.8

942.0

565.5

457.3 406.8

20
11
20
12
20
13

20
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10

0

A similar trend is evident with total aid to education as apercentage of ODA, which has increased from 6.3% in 2002 to
13.5% in 2013. This makes the UK one of the most generous donors
to education, as a percentage of its total aid giving. Considering
the recent rises in overall aid levels by the UK, its ongoing support
to education remains very important to maintain levels of aid to
education.

FIGURE UK3: United Kingdom Total aid to education as %total ODA
2002–2013
3.9%
16%
14%
12%
10%
8% 6.3%
6%

12.0%
10.2%

13.5%

12.9%

12.0%

10.6%

12.0%
10.5%

7.7%
5.5%

6.2%
4.2%
4.3%

7.3%

6.8%

4.8%

20
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10

In 2013, the UK government gave GB£905 million of direct
education aid bilaterally to governments – representing 7.8% of
all ODA. The rest was given multilaterally through international
agencies (GPE, World Bank, UNICEF, amongst others), civil society
organisations and into research projects.

UK and the Global Partnershipfor Education

1143.21009.3
787.5

6.0%

0%

The UK’s commitment to education development is reflected by thesteadily increasing amount of aid funding pledged to this sector, as seenin Figure UK2. Between 2002 and 2013, total aid to education has
increased by over 600%.

639.4

4%

8.1%

7.7%

7.2%

2%

Aid to education trends

1,000

6%

9.0%

8.4%

20
11
20
12
20
13

0.47%

20
00
20
01
20
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10
20
11
20
12
20
13
20
14

0.8%
0.7%
0.6%
0.5%
0.4%
0.3%
0.2%
0.1%
0%

The amount of aid to basic education has also increased, but ata slower rate than the increase in overall ODA. Therefore, aid to basic
education as a proportion of ODA has dropped over the last few years,
from 8.1% in 2011 to 6.8% in 2013.

7.5%

4%
2%
20
11
20
12
20
13

20
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10

0%

The UK has long been a strong supporter of the GPE, and has given
consistent support to the GPE over the years.
At the GPE replenishment conference in June 2014, covering theyears 2015–18, the UK pledged to give up to GB£300 million, themost of any donor nation. However, the UK capped its donation at
15% of overall funds raised during the replenishment period, and heldback GB£100 million until certain results have been achieved. These
conditions are designed to leverage other donors to give funds, while
also increasing confidence in the GPE. However, it has been argued
that these caveats will have the opposite effect, by making it seem that
DfID questions GPE’s capacity to deliver. Moreover, DfID is setting
a precedent by making its donation subject to these conditions, andthis could be unworkable if this approach is adopted by all donors.

Support to low income countries andthe most marginalised
Compared to other DAC members, the UK gives a high proportion of
ODA to low-income countries, and countries that have high levels ofout-of-school children. The top five recipients of UK bilateral ODA in2013 – Pakistan, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, India and Nigeria – have almost
20 million out-of-school primary school children between them, overa third of the global total of 58 million.98
Girls’ education is a major priority for the UK, and in 2011 DfID
launched a new Girls’ Educational Challenge Fund which is providing
an additional GB£328 million to reach a million of the world’s
98. EFA Global Monitoring Report, Education for All 2000–2015: Achievements
and Challenges, UNESCO, 2015 https://en.unesco.org/gem-report

Education Aid Watch 201545

poorest girls in 18 countries. The scheme is a welcome addition toreaching the most marginalised girls, and learning from the project has
been shared throughout.

UK education and development
strategy
The current (and previous) UK government has been keen to engage
the private sector in international development, and this has included
supporting non-state education providers. Most notably, DfID has
supported ‘low-fee’ private schools in several contexts, including
Nigeria, India, Ethiopia, Pakistan and Kenya. DfID describes this asa ‘pragmatic’ step when public education is unavailable, and insists it
takes measures to ensure that the poorest families are exempt frompaying fees.99 Nevertheless, the trend is concerning and there is apolarised debate on this issue. In 2014, DfID funded an independent
research study into the effect of private school on various educational
outcomes; however, this did not reach strong, generalisable conclusions
because of the diversity in the private sector between different
contexts, and gaps in analysable data.100 Whilst accepting that thedebate is nuanced and ongoing, GCE UK strongly believes thatpublic education and the removal of school fees are the best means of
ensuring equity and universal access. It also stresses the need for DfID
to commission further independent research into this topic.
DfID has made it a priority to improve the delivery of educationin protracted crises, so that people affected by violent conflict,natural disaster or displacement can continue to access learning
opportunities and feel safe doing so. For this to happen there has tobe a significant change in the way that education in emergencies isfinanced, planned, delivered and monitored. GCE UK urges DfID to
be a leader in this field, and to increase the amount of humanitarian
aid spent on education to the recommended proportion of 4% of all
humanitarian aid.
In 2014 GCE UK carried out an analysis of the UK government’s
support to education for persons with disabilities. It was concluded
that DfID should do more to embed and prioritise the needs of
persons with disabilities in its own work, and be a global championof this cause.101 In December 2014 DfID launched a Disability
Framework that ensures all UK policies and programmes are designed
to take into account and advance the rights of persons with disabilities.
GCE UK welcomes this commitment. However, the UK coalition
also urges DfID to actively lead the work with the Global Partnershipfor Education and other multilateral and bilateral agencies to ensurethat disability is addressed in broader learning strategies and global
public goods.
At present, the UK is only investing 0.18% of aid to basic
education on early childhood care and development.102 GCE UK
99. Department for International Development (DfID), Education Position Paper:
Improving learning, expanding opportunities, DfID, 2013 www.gov.uk/government/
uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/225715/Education_Position_Paper_July_2013.pdf
100. L. Day Ashley, C. Mcloughlin, M. Aslam, J. Engel, J. Wales, S. Rawal, R. Batley,
G. Kingdon, S. Nicolai, P. Rose, Education Rigorous Literature Review:The role andimpact of private schools in developing countries, DfID, 2014 www.gov.uk/government/
uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/307032/Private-schools-2014.pdf
101. GCE UK, Send All My Friends to School: A Global Campaign for Education UK
evaluation of the UK’s aid to education for children with disabilities, GCE UK, 2014
http://media.wix.com/ugd/87691e_f1afef0313694f6e837489547ad78d55.pdf
102. DfID Dev Tracker http://devtracker.dfid.gov.uk/sector/1/categories/112

46

Global Campaign for Education

appreciates that this area of work has significant overlap with othersectors (for example, health), but encourages DfID to increase
investment in this area.
The UK Government has consistently affirmed its commitment
to education. In its Changing Lives, Delivering Results policy paper in
2011, DfID described education as “the key to beating poverty and thegreatest investment we can make for global prosperity and the future of
our world.”103
DfID’s specific approach to education was further elaborated
in its Education Position Paper of July 2013, in which it stated its
main objectives to be improving learning quality, reaching the mostmarginalised children and keeping girls in school.104
DfID uses a results-based framework and sets itself specific targets;for the period of the current coalition government (2010–2015) it set
out to achieve the following:•••

9 million children helped to go to primary school (of which half
will be girls) by March 2015
2 million children helped to go to lower secondary school(700,000 girls)
Train 190,000 teachers by end of March 2015

According to their 2015 mid-year review, DfID are on track tomeet all these targets, though full data for 2014 and 2015 is to be
confirmed.105

Looking forward to education
post‑2015
Following the May 2015 election, little additional information has
been given on the strategic direction of DfID support to education,although DfID is committed to continued support on certain projects
including its support for GPE (until 2018) and the Girls’ Education
Challenge (running until 2017). GCE UK urges DfID to continue
to lead the world on funding to education both bilaterally andmultilaterally.
The UK government has been heavily involved in the negotiationof the post-2015 SDGs. GCE urges DfID to ensure its funding aligns
with and promotes the education goal within the 2015 framework, andensures education work supports the attainment of all goals, including
cross-cutting issues on achieving gender equality and ending gender
based violence.

103. DfID, UK Aid: Changing Lives, Delivering Results, DfID, 2011 www.
gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/67584/
BAR-MAR-summary-document-web.pdf
104. DfID, Education Position Paper op. cit.
105. M. Lowcock, DfID Mid Year Report to Parliament Annex: Achievements,
DfID, 2015 www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/
file/410980/DFID_Mid-Year_Report_Achievements_Annex.pdf

Recommendations
•

•

•

•

•

Support to GPE: GCE UK welcomes the UK government’s
pledge of £300m to GPE in 2014 but asks that Ministers areproactive in advocating with other governments (e.g. France,
Germany, Japan and Qatar) to increase support for GPE as aneffective multilateral mechanism – so as to ensure that the UK’s
condition of a 15% burden share does not mean that the actual
UK commitment to GPE falls significantly short of this headline
amount. If the UK fails to leverage greater commitment fromothers then there is a strong case for it to remove this 15% burdenshare cap.
Private Education: Whilst accepting there is currently debate
on this issue, GCE UK retains a strong commitment to public
education and the removal of school fees as the best means of
ensuring equity and universal access. It also stresses the need for
DfID to commission further independent research into this topic.
Disability: GCE UK welcomes DfID’s Disability Framework, andurges it to prioritise the needs of persons with disabilities in its
own education work, and be a global champion of this cause.
Education in Emergencies: GCE UK urges DfID to be a leader
in this field, and to increase the amount of humanitarian aid spenton education to the recommended proportion of 4%.
Post-2015: GCE UK urges DfID to continue to lead the world
on funding to education both bilaterally and multilaterally, and toensure that all funding aligns with and promotes the education goal
within the SDG framework.

United States of America
Executive summary
The United States is the largest donor to basic education in
the world. This is, at least in part, because it gives the largest
amount of ODA amount in dollar terms in the world. However,significantly, the USA also allocates remarkably large amounts of
its aid to education budget – 78% in 2013 – to basic education.
In fact, in 2013, it was the largest DAC donor to basic education.
That said, in terms of overall percentages and the ratio of aid
to education (and to basic education) given from its aid budget
this is lower than many other countries. Comparative to other
donors, the USA continues to give excellent support to lowincome countries and fragile states in their support to education.
The United States has also been gradually increasing its aid to the
Global Partnership for Education in recent years, with this risingfrom US$20 million in 2012 to approximately US$70 million
in 2015 – a significant move signalling greater support from the
USA for more multilateral funding to education.
However, the Obama administration has continued aproblematic practice since 2013, in which the government’s
budget request for total aid for basic education has remained
at approximately US$600 million for all education ODA,
significantly lower than the prior year’s actual Congressional
appropriation. Fortunately, again in 2015, Congress, through thework of several key members who have strongly supported global
education, has raised the actual appropriation above the USAID
request to about $800 million, including the allocation for GPE.
As the world moves towards the final stages of implementing
the MDGs, and towards establishing the new targets throughthe Sustainable Development Goals, it appears that there is arenewed focus on education by the USA. As the world’s largest
bilateral donor, the US must maintain support for education for
all, continue to focus on supporting the GPE, support a broadbased understanding of learning, and effective partnerships ineducation, while also beginning to focus on secondary education.

Overall aid trends
The United States is the largest bilateral aid donor in the world.
Although overall ODA in dollar amounts is high, ODA/GNI is low
relative to other major donors. From the outset of the MDGs in2000 through 2005, ODA rose steadily, peaking at 0.23% in that year.
Subsequently, the percentage fell for most of President Bush’s second
term to a low of 0.16% in 2007. Under the administration of President
Obama, beginning in January 2009, the level of ODA has again risen
slightly, and has fluctuated between 0.18% and 0.21% of GNI.

Education Aid Watch 2015

47

FIGURE US1: United States Total ODA as % GNI
2000–2014
0.25%

0.23%

0.20%

0.17%
0.15%

0.15%
0.10%

0.10%

0.21% 0.21%
0.18%

0.18%

FIGURE US4: United States Education aid by level, 2013
Postsecondary 16%

0.20% 0.19%

0.19%
0.18%

0.13%
0.11%

Secondary 6%

0.16%

Basic 78%

0.05%

20
00
20
01
20
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10
20
11
20
12
20
13
20
14

0%

Aid to education

In dollar figures, the amount of money the United States spends on aid
to education as a percentage of ODA has been on a general upward
trend since 2002. Despite these increases, American aid to education
remains low compared to other donors. As a percentage of total ODA,
aid to education has experienced only marginal changes year to year
since 2007, averaging 3.2% – far below the 10% advocated by the
global education civil society community.

FIGURE US2: United States Aid to education 2002–2013,
US$ millions (US$, constant 2013)
1,200
937.4

851.1
678.5

616.7

600

767.4

894.9

715.6
580.2

465.1

400
200

224.3

20
13

20
11
20
12

20
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10

0

FIGURE US5: United States Total aid to basic education
2002–2013, US$ millions (US$, constant 2013)

FIGURE US3: United States Aid to education 2002–2013,
US$ millions (US$, constant 2013)
4.0%

2.3%

2.0%
1.5%

2.2%

2.3%

2.6%

612.3

600

499.9
402.9 363.4

679.2

698.8
588.9

527.5
410.0

200
0

20
13

0%

20
11
20
12

128.2

20
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10

0.5%

20
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10

707.4

400

1.4%

Despite overall levels of aid to education as a proportion of GNI
being relatively low, the US allocates a much larger share of theireducation aid budget to basic education than many other donors. In
2013, aid to basic education represented 78% of total education aid.

48 Global Campaign for Education

779.7

800
3.3%

3.2%

2.5%

1.0%

3.2%

3.0%

3.0%

3.7%

3.4%

3.3%

3.5%

1,000

20
13

800

969.1

20
11
20
12

935.6

1,000

The level of commitment to basic education by the United States,
as a quantitatively large donor, should be commended. The proportionof the education aid budget spent by the United States on basic
education is the largest across all the bilateral donors in Education Aid
Watch – and has been rising in recent years, contrary to international
trends. In fact, in 2013 the USA was the largest donor – bothbilaterally and multilaterally – to basic education. In 2014, the UnitedStates spent US$822 million on basic education assistance, dwarfing
other education and social services aid.
Undoubtedly, this is at least partially due to the recent priority
placed by USAID on lower grade level literacy. Basic education
remains the top priority of USAID, with little programming at
the secondary education level, and even less on early childhood
education – which is reflected in spending patterns. This is despite
an emphasis by the Obama administration on the importance of earlychildhood education among the US public. US government officials
have said that they do not see the strategic advantage in undertaking
expanded secondary education programming. In interviews, some US
government officials have said that this has come at the expense of
cost-cutting and programme reductions in secondary education andschool-to-work programmes.

Also comparative to other donors, the USA continues to give
excellent support to low-income countries and fragile states in theirsupport to education. Out of the ten countries that received themost education aid in FY 2014, five were categorised as both least
developed countries by the World Bank Group and as fragile states by
the OECD (Afghanistan, Liberia, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republicof the Congo and South Sudan); one country (Pakistan) was listed

as a fragile state but not as an LDC, and four were listed as neither(Jordan, Namibia, Indonesia, and Ghana).106,107

FIGURE US6: United States Total aid to basic education
2002–2013, US$ millions (US$, constant 2013)150$123.1

100

$43.1

$14.3

$13.8

n

$12.6

.

Su

D

da

.C

$17.6

h

$21.6

Jo
rd
an
N
am
ibi
a
Lib
er
ia
Et
hio
p ia
In
do
ne
sia
G
ha
na

an

Pa
kis
t

So

Af
g

ha
nis
t

0

an

$25.4

.R

$50.5

ut

$56.9

50

However, the US continues to spend disproportionately, as withall development sectors, in South Asia (specifically Afghanistan andPakistan). The US government prioritises countries in which it has
a ‘strategic interest’, leading to low-income countries falling out of the
primary target of US aid. This is reflected in the top ten recipients of
US aid to education.108
Global education advocates in the US have worked incollaboration to expand education funding by USAID. For the past
several years, GCE-US and others have consistently advocated throughdirect communications with USAID and sign-on letters among
our coalition members and with Members of the US Congress fora USAID request of US$800 million in the annual basic educationbudget and Congressional appropriation. In addition, GCE in the US
has advocated for $125 million, additional to the US$800 million,
for the Global Partnership for Education (GPE).

FIGURE US7: United States Education and Social Sector
Details 2014 US$ millions
1,000
800

$822.0

600
400
200

$3.1

$30.7

Ba
sic
ed
uc
ati
on
Hi
gh
er
ed
uc
ati
on
Ed
uc
ati
on
an
ds
So
oc
cia
ial
lp
oli
cie
s, r
an egud s lat
ys ion
tem s
s
So
cia
l se
rvi
ce
s
So
cia
l as
sis
tan
ce

0

$223.5$160.2$124.9This has helped to secure a positive trend towards a gradualincrease in the USAID budget request for GPE allocation in recent
years, with this rising from US$20 million in 2012 to approximately$70 million in 2015.
Yet, the Obama administration has continued a problematic
practice since 2013, in which the government’s budget request for
total aid for basic education has remained at approximately $600
million for all education ODA, significantly lower that the prioryear’s actual Congressional appropriation. Fortunately, again in 2015,
Congress, through the work of several key members who have strongly
supported global education, has raised the actual appropriation above
the USAID request to about $800 million, including the allocation
for GPE.
Congress has expressed concern that appropriated funds foreducation have not been spent in a timely fashion in recent years.
These funds in the ‘pipeline’ have given rise to some members ofCongress stating that USAID is not able to effectively implement
programmes for the total appropriated funding level. In 2015, the
US Congress placed stipulations on these unspent pipeline funds thatthey might be allocated elsewhere if not spent, and requested periodic
reports on the level of appropriated funds not yet spent. USAID has
maintained that some funds have not been spent due to programmes
being in areas of conflict, political uncertainty and transition in
implementing countries and due to the time required to actually plan,
design and implement large-scale funding projects.
In addition, by focusing education funding on early grade literacy,
programmes for secondary level education have been de-emphasised
and suffered cutbacks.
As with all USAID policy, all indicators are disaggregated by sex
to ensure interventions are being measured for gender impacts.Youthprogramming is integral to two of the three USAID educational goals
and USAID is in the process of developing a more cohesive, focused
approach to engaging young people. USAID support to inclusive
schooling of marginalised groups focuses on removing barriers forlearners with disabilities. In line with Goal 3 of the Education Sector
Strategy, there is significant focus on children in conflict-affected areas.
Although USAID’s education strategy doesn’t specifically identify
equal access to education for girls and other marginalised groups,
empowerment of girls and women (including education) was a corepriority of Secretary Clinton’s tenure at the State Department.
However, there has since been less of a focus on equitable access for
marginalised groups including children with disabilities and ethnic
and religious minorities.
USAID has recently elevated education to one of its ‘core’
objectives and subsequent significant staff increases in the education
sector of USAID indicate a renewed focus on education. In 2015,
USAID is continuing outreach to the US public through the workof Ms. Christie Vilsack, Senior Advisor for International Education,
conveying the message of the importance of global education funding
and programmes. Considerable effort has been placed on sharing thismessage on college campuses and with community events.

106. www.un.org/en/development/desa/policy/cdp/ldc/ldc_list.pdf
107. www.oecd.org/dac/governance-peace/conflictandfragility/docs/List%20of%20
fragile%20states.pdf
108. www.foreignassistance.gov/web/ObjectiveView.aspx?budTab=tab_Bud_
Spent#ObjAnchor

Education Aid Watch 201549

Overall aid strategy and focus on
education in donor strategy
The stated mission of USAID, according to the 2014–2017 strategicplan, is to “shape and sustain a peaceful, prosperous, just, anddemocratic world, and foster conditions for stability and progress for the
benefit of the American people and people everywhere”.109 Within thatmission, USAID has defined three main goals for education aid:•••

Improved reading skills for 100 million children in primary gradesby 2015;
Improved ability of tertiary and workforce development programs
to generate workforce skills relevant to a country’s development
goals; andIncreased equitable access to education in crisis and conflict
environments for 15 million learners by 2015. 110

USAID’s education aid is premised on the idea that education isboth foundational to human development and linked to broad-­based
economic growth and democratic governance.111

109. United States Department of State and USAID, Strategic Plan FY 2014–2017,
US Department of State and USAID, 2014 www.state.gov/documents/organization/223997.pdf
110. USAID, USAID Education Strategy 2011–2015, USAID, 2011 http://pdf.
usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PDACQ946.pdf
111. Ibid.

50 Global Campaign for Education

Conclusions and Recommendations
As the world’s largest bilateral donor, the US must maintain support for
education for all as we reach the final stages of the MDG targets andmove to establish new targets through the Sustainable Development
Goals. GCE-US calls on the government to:
•

•

•

•

Maintain support for basic education in the developing world byensuring that US aid for basic education does not fall below thelevel of US$800 million annually.
In addition, continue to support the Global Partnership for
Education, by supporting a financial contribution of US$125
million to the Global Partnership for Education.
Support education initiatives that represent a broad definitionof learning, beyond literacy and numeracy, to include global
citizenship, critical thinking and other life skills required forindividuals to be effective participants in the local, national andglobal political and economic arenas.
Ensure that programmes are included that deal with secondary
education attrition, particularly among girls and those mostmarginalised due to violence and conflict, geography, disability,
language and ethnic backgrounds.

3

MULTILATERAL PROFILES

112. This profile benefitted greatly from a report by Alliance 2015 and Ibis Scalingup, published in 2014: ‘EU impact on education post-2015’ Alliance2015/IBIS 2014www.alliance2015.org/fileadmin/Texte__Pdfs/Text_Documents/Round_Table_CPH_2014_Education/Scaling_up_EU_impact_on_education_post_2015_
final_including_foreword_and_disclaimer_15may2014.pdf

1,400
1113.3

1,200

967.6

1,000

852.2

953.6

1283.6881.0

1151.41083.71042.4

800
600
400
200

274.6
216.6

220.0

0

20
13

EU aid declined for the first time in 2012, after a long period of
growth starting in 2000, and is now levelling off. Globally the
EU is a major contributor to education, being the sixth largest
donor in 2013. Of total aid disbursed to education in 2013, close
to 8% came from the EU, while around 7% of all aid to basic
education came from the EU.
Education spending went from being 9.8% of total aid in2010 (when it hit an all-time high as a percentage of total aid)
to 6% in 2013. While the EU has remained firm on achieving
MDG2, the aid money it contributes is simply not following its
rhetorical commitments in recent years. However, things lookeven worse for the level of basic aid to education from the EU.
As with many other donors, basic education has been hit hardest
within the overall education aid reductions. From 2012 to 2013,
aid to basic education was reduced by a third.
There has been a major increase in aid to post-secondary
education, with large increases in the ount channelled toscholarships from EU aid in the last few years. This has risen from
US$16 million in 2007 to nearly US$200 million in 2013. This
could be set to increase in the future: of the EU’s announced€2.5 billion for education over the 2014–18 period, well overhalf (or at least €1.5 billion) will go to the future Erasmus for All
programme – an academic exchange programme between EU
and overseas universities, which has helped pupils improve theireducation by gaining experience of studying abroad.
Despite a decline since 2010, overall the EU has increased its
aid to education since 2006, and it could play a major role in thelandscape of aid to education if monies are channelled away frompost-secondary and towards helping those most in need, andclear, equitable and ambitious targets are set for its support forthe post-2015 education agenda.

FIGURE M1: European Union Total aid to education,
2002–2013, US$ millions (US$, constant 2013)

20
11
20
12

Executive summary

Overall EU aid commitments

20
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10

European Union112

This section looks at the ODA which is spent from ‘EU
institutions’; that is, ODA managed by EU institutions such as theEuropean Commission or the European Development Fund, andwhich comes mainly from member states’ contributions.113
EU aid has grown steadily from around 2003 to 2012, when it
reached a peak of US$17.5 billion. However, after a slight drop ofaround 13% in 2013, in 2014 went back to US$16 billion.114

The EU commitment to education
The EU institutions’ development assistance is guided by the 2012
EU development policy An Agenda for Change, which on the one
hand prioritises human rights, democracy and good governance,
and inclusive growth for development (including sustainableagriculture and energy, human development and private sector
engagement) on the other.115 Countries neighbouring Europe, andsub-Saharan Africa, have been identified as clear priority regions, with
an emphasis on support to fragile, crisis and post-crisis states. As a resultof this geographical re-prioritisation, EU institutions are expected tophase out 16 bilateral programmes in middle-income countries in Asiaand Latin America over the coming years.
Globally, the European Union is a significant and important donor
to education. In 2013 they were the sixth biggest donor (multilateral
113. The remainder of this section looks at aid from the ‘EU institutions’, although
it uses this term interchangeably with the term ‘EU aid’. This could refer to all aid
which is allocated via the 28 EU member states but for the purpose of this report weare using this as shorthand for aid provided by EU institutions.
114. The DATA report 2014: Fighting Poverty and Financing Africa’s Future Available
here: www.one.org/us/policy/data-report-2014
115. Council of the European Union (2012) ‘Increasing the Impact of EU Development Policy: an Agenda for Change – Council Conclusions’,
http://register.consilium.europa.eu/doc/srv?l=EN&f=ST%209369%202012%20
INIT

Education Aid Watch 201551

EU aid to education: the gap between
rhetoric and reality
In spite of the strong policy and rhetorical support to education, andthe commitment to spend 20% of aid budgets on health and education,
there is clearly a long way to go – given that in 2013 only 6% of total
aid was spent on education.
However, there appear to be few mechanisms to ensure that thistarget is reached, and the commitment is unclear: it is uncertain
how much will be allocated to health, and how much to education.
Assuming that half (i.e. 10% of the aid budget) is intended for
education, current levels are well below this – and have been
decreasing in recent years. Aid to education went from being 9.8% of
total aid spending by the EU in 2010 – when it hit an all-time highas a percentage of total aid – to 6% in 2013 (see Figure M2 for overall
trends).119 This has therefore meant an 18% reduction in the amountof aid for education between 2010–2013 – away from the target rather
than towards it.

FIGURE M2: European Union Total aid to education,
2002–2013, US$ millions (US$, constant 2013)
12%
10%

9.8%

9.3%
8.0%

8%

8.5%

7.9%

8.2%

8.0%

7.0%

8.5%
6.2%

6%

6.1%

6.0%

4%
2%

20
13

20
11
20
12

0%

20
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10

and bilateral) of education,116 and the fifth largest donor to basic
education. Of total aid disbursed to education in 2013, close to 8%
came from the EU, and around 7% of aid to basic education camefrom the EU. This has stayed roughly the same for aid to education
since around 2003.
The EU has launched a number of initiatives aimed at helping todeliver on the objectives outlined in the ‘Agenda for Change’. A newinternal structure, seven-year programming periods, and a strategic
choice to limit support to three sectors per country provide the basis
on which the EU aims to meet the commitments in the ‘Agenda for
Change’ development policy. Included within this policy is a clear
commitment to education.
In May 2013 Development Commissioner Andris Piebalgs
announced that at least 20% of the 2014–2020 aid budget would be
dedicated to human development and social inclusion. Education wasa major component of this, with €2.5 billion expected to be mobilised,confirming education as a priority for development post-2015.117
In addition, the EU has a parliamentary requirement that 20% of
its aid budget should go to health and education in the 2014–20
programming period.118
However, there is a lack of clear equity and quality targets andthe EU does not have an education strategy to set out how education
will be prioritised. A lesson learned from the past period of global
commitments is that, without clearly defined measures and targets, theEU and member states can neither be held accountable, nor can they
be regarded as spearheading on equity and quality in learning.

As with many other donors, basic education has been hit hardest
within the overall education aid reductions. From 2012 to 2013, aid tobasic education was reduced by one third. In the period 2010–2013,
direct aid to primary education took a particular hit, with thisreducing by over 40%.120
Unfortunately, this looks set to worsen. The EU contribution to
the global basic education aid pot has actually declined as a total of aid
to education across all donors. In 2010, the EU’s contribution to basic
education as a global total was 10%; by 2013, this was only 7%. Thisis worrying, considering overall global levels of aid to basic education
have been reducing during this period, and suggests that the EU is
cutting back its aid to basic education more deeply than the donor
average. But most worrying is that some European bilateral donors –such as the Netherlands, which has been reducing its bilateral aid – haspointed to the EU as playing a role in filling the gaps it will leave.
Yet this data suggests that not only is the EU not playing a role to ‘fill
gaps’, but it is contributing to the gaps itself.
While EU aid to basic education is falling faster and harder thanoverall aid to education, the same is not the case for aid to postsecondary education, with aid levels staying broadly the same at thislevel. As a result, as shown in Figure M2, EU aid to post-secondary
education surpassed the total amount given to basic education in 2012.

FIGURE M3: European Union Total EU aid todifferent education levels, 2002–2013, US$ millions(US$, constant 2013)
800
600
400
200

116. For total education this was just behind Germany, France, USA, UK and
the World Bank. For basic education this was behind: USA, UK, World Bankand Norway.
117. http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-13-453_en.htm
118. ECA (European Court of Auditors). 2010. EU Development Assistancefor Basic Education in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Special Report 12.
Luxembourg: ECA.
119. This was the highest proportion of aid over the period 2002–2013, and for theperiod of this report.

52

Global Campaign for Education

Basic education
Post-secondary

20
13

20
12

11
20

20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10

20
03

20

02

0
Secondary education

120. Note this is for ‘direct’ aid to education, rather than ‘total’ – see data source andmethodology section for more information on these categories. For this analysis
we used ‘direct’ aid as it is only possible to breakdown the categories within basic
education (including for primary education) for direct aid.

In part this increase in post-secondary education is due to large
increases in the amount channelled to scholarships from EU aid in thelast few years. This has risen from US$16 million in 2006 to nearly
US$200 million in 2013: this means that spending on scholarships
has gone from accounting for around 5% of EU aid spent in 2007 to
44% in 2013. An even greater concern is that this trend may worsen:of the announced €2.5 billion for education over the 2014–18 period,
well over half (or at least €1.5 billion) will go to the future Erasmus
for All programme – an academic exchange programme between EU
and overseas universities, which has helped students improve theireducation by gaining experience of studying abroad.
Since 2006 the EU has, overall, increased aid to education, despitea decline since peaking in 2010. However, it has decreased support
to low-income countries and sub-Saharan Africa, while prioritising
student exchange programmes and aid to middle-income countries,
especially in countries close to home. In fact one quarter of all
aid to scholarships went to a handful of countries in Central andEastern Europe,121 including a number of EU candidate and potential
candidate countries such as Albania, Serbia, Macedonia, Bosnia andHerzegovina, and Kosovo.122
In 2013 only 10% of direct aid to education went to low-income
countries; however, nearly three-quarters went to middle-income
countries. It is clear, therefore, that far too much EU aid for education
is being spent both in middle-income countries and on higher levelsof education, especially on scholarships – a sceptical use of funds if themain aim is to support the poorest children in the world to get a basic
quality education.

The EC and the Global Partnershipfor Education
Countering the recent trends in EU funding to basic education, theEuropean Commission pledged 22% of the total amount committed to
the Global Partnership for Education at the June 2014 replenishment
conference. The EC made the second biggest contribution at
US$419.3 million.
This builds on ongoing and strong support to the GPE, with theEC pledging €31.8 million to the GPE fund between 2011 and 2013.
The GPE is in line with the priorities of the EC, and the EC plays anactive role on its board. One of the biggest advantages of the GPE for
the EC is the fact that it has strong expertise in education, and valuablenetworks of competent persons that the EC can draw on and alignwith when supporting countries where it lacks capacity.

EU aid: Spread too thinly?
EU aid to education tends to be spread very thinly. The EU disburses
only 40% of its basic education aid to the 41 ‘priority countries’.
In many countries the amount of aid is so low it does not countas one of the major donors – even though the EU institutions as

121. Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Tunisia , Kosovo, Georgia, Moldova,
Albania, Macedonia, Serbia, Armenia, Belarus, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan.
122. The European Union refers to ‘Kosovo*’, with an asterisked footnote containing the text agreed to by the Belgrade–Pristina negotiations: “This designation is

without prejudice to positions on status, and is in line with UNSCR 1244 and the ICJ
Opinion on the Kosovo Declaration of Independence.”a whole constitute a major donor. According to one study, 49 of its
106 edu­cation programmes are classified as non-significant, meaningthat they either do not prioritise education or, even where they do,they do not provide sufficient resources to the sector. Meanwhile thehigh number of countries receiving aid to education from the EU
is also combined with a very limited number of staff assigned withexpertise in education. An EU evalu­ation reported that education
expertise was weak, which had reduced the EU’s ability to maintainsector dia­logues in education. The absence of staff with the nec­essary
expertise and seniority weakened in-country dialogue. For instance,of the 44 delegations worldwide where education was a focal sector,
more than one third did not have a person assigned to education.
This is a shame as the EU has very broad reach, and at country level
it also has the potential to play an important convening and coordinationrole – not least because the EU’s programmes reach more widely thanthose of any member state to a number of poor and fragile countries.
And while considerable coordination does takes place, this is often notvery systematic. The EC also has the potential to play a much stronger
convening role with member states at country level moving forward.

Conclusions looking towards
post‑2015
An evaluation of EU aid to basic education in sub-Saharan Africa andSouth Asia in 2010 concluded that while the EU was contributing
substantially to the education sector, and had made progress on
objectives targeting access to education and gender parity in primaryeducation, almost no progress had been made in quality education.123
While the EU has remained firm on achieving MDG2, the aid money
they contribute is simply not following their rhetorical commitments inrecent years.
Not only has there been a decline in EU aid to basic education inrecent years but there has also been a decline in secondary education
too – from an alarmingly low level to start with. EU aid to secondary
remains very low; in 2013 direct aid to secondary dipped down toaround the same level as in 2005. The EU institutions must begin tolook towards building up their aid contributions to secondary education,
given the need for this to expand beyond 2015. Overall there appears
to be little movement to suggest that the EU is anywhere near ready torespond to commitments to expand into secondary education.
Moving forward the EU needs to make more specific and concretecommitments to the promise of allocating 20% of total aid to healthand education. Given the importance of EU aid to education inquantity terms, and the role of the EU in helping to shape future
members’ response to the post-2015 agenda, it is important that the
EU sets clear, ambitious, long-term targets for financing education,and moves towards a more equitable split of financing across levels forthe post-2015 education agenda. The EU must also limit the amountof ODA being spent on scholarships. Finally, the EU institutions must
look to play a far more active role in helping shape education agendas–using its reach and scope to coordinate with other actors. EU aid has
been highly valued for its alignment with national priorities, and foroffering aid which is untied and grant-based. As such, there could be
an important role for EU aid moving forward.
123. EuropeAid, Investing in People: Mid-term review of the strategy paper for thematic
programme 2007–2013 , EuropeAid, 2010.

Education Aid Watch 201553

Global Partnershipfor Education
Is the Global Partnership for
Education filling the gaps?

of donors which give significant contributions to the partnership
remains low: of the of the $2.3 billion pledged to date in the 2015–18
replenishment round, somewhere in the region of 70–80% came fromjust seven donors.

FIGURE M4: Global Partnership for Education
Disbursements 2004–2014, US$ millions (current prices)600

124. Brookings Institution and UNESCO (2013) Financing for Global Education:
Opportunities for Multilateral Action. A report prepared for the UN Special Envoy for
Global Education for the High-level Roundtable on Learning for All: Coordinating
the Financing and Delivery of Education. Washington, DC / Paris: Center for
Universal Education at the Brookings Institution / Education for All Global
Monitoring Report.
125. Global Partnership for Education, Factsheet: Allocations and Disbursements,
Global Partnership for Education, February 2015.
126. These figures are based on figures submitted to the GCE from the GPE secretariat for use in this report.
127. www.globalpartnership.org/key-results
128. As GPE does not account in the same way as OECD-DAC donors, it is not

54

Global Campaign for Education

$524

$385

400

$354

$216

200

$222

$334

$243

$125
$59

20
14

20
13

20
12

20
11

20
10

0

$53

$15

20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09

The Global Partnership for Education (GPE) – formerly the
Education For All Fast Track Initiative, established in 2002 – was thefirst global partnership focusing on education in developing countries.
Set up to fill a vacuum in international leadership on this issue,
the GPE continues to play a unique and critical role in supporting
country-level planning. Given it is also the only global, multilateralfinancing mechanism devoted to financing education systems, witha focus on supporting low-income countries to scale up quality
basic education for all, it is an important partnership in light of the
reductions in aid to basic education.
In volume terms, the GPE has become an increasingly importantsource of external financing for basic education in low- and lowermiddle-income countries. Between 2004 and 2012, the GPE disbursed
close to US$2 billion to low and lower middle income countries forbasic education. It accounted for 12% of total external aid to education
going to low income countries and 6% of that to fragile states over
2010–2012. It jumped from being the 22nd largest donor to basic
education in 2004, to the 13th in 2007, to being the 5th largest donorin 2011; by 2012 it came fourth after the United Kingdom, UnitedStates and World Bank.124 In February 2015, the GPE estimated it
had disbursed US$1.597 billion 2011–2014 in support of educationplans.125 This means GPE has continued to be in the top 5 mostimportant donors to education, in terms of total quantity of aid
since 2011.126
According to the GPE’s own calculations, this has helped to getaround 22.5 million more children in school.Youth literacy rates
have increased to 73% in GPE in 2007–12 compared to 71% in
2000–05 in GPE partner countries. 69% of girls in GPE partnercountries now finish primary school compared to 56%. Finally, theGPE has contributed to improving quality by financing the trainingof around 300,000 teachers.127
However, in spite of this GPE has failed to mobilise the resources
required to play its envisaged role fully. The 2011 replenishment
campaign generated $1.5 billion for the years 2011–2014, comparedwith the US$2.5 billion requested; the 2014 replenishment campaign
has so far generated US$2.1 billion – only 60% of the US$3.5 billion
target set. This is well below similar global funds for health: in 2011,
country programmable aid disbursed by global health funds was
10 times larger in the health sector in 2011.128 Moreover, the number

A country-led partnership
Of course, the GPE is more than simply a fund for increased aid
resources. At the heart of the GPE is a belief in the value of bringing
together developing country governments with donor country
governments, civil society, the teaching profession and the private
sector, to pool resources and knowledge in support of education, bothglobally and nationally. Through this approach, it gives coordinated,strategic support to nationally-led education plans that aim to provide
every child with a quality basic education. In a world where aid tobasic education in low-income countries is reducing, especially ina way which supports country systems, this role becomes ever more
important. By supporting and working through local educationgroups, the GPE has helped to strengthen the framework for donorco­ordination at the country level.
The GPE has played an increasingly significant role in supporting
developing country governments to increase their own ambitions
around financing plans. In addition, in the context of reduced aid tobasic education and to supporting country plans – in some countries
disproportionately to others – there is clearly a very important role toplay in continuing to mobilise funds in low-income countries for basic
education, or those in the most need.
In fact, it appears that the strength of the partnership lies in its
potential to target countries in need, especially in terms of improving
coordination and playing a role in reducing the fragmented natureof aid. At present, this is not occurring enough. However, GPE
needs more support to play a stronger leadership role in the future.
For example, one study looking at 31 countries who have received
a programme grant showed that 24% of aid disbursed to basic
education came from GPE. For 10 of the 28 countries receiving
GPE funds in 2011, these funds constituted no more than one-fifthof aid to basic education. However, the GPE seems to really play avital role when it can give targeted support to countries, either bydirectly comparable, according to one source, in 2011 they were the fourth and thistotal figure over the four years would imply they are around the fourth biggest donor
over the 2011–2014 period. See Rose paper on multilaterals for 2011 figure.

adding significant funding to country plans or filling gaps left by other
donors, sometimes when they are withdrawing support, or where
there is a lack of donor support to the country. For instance, in 31
countries, the GPE provided at least half of the external finance forbasic education, either because aid from other donors was negligible
or because the GPE had channelled significant volumes to somecountries. For instance, in the Central African Republic, who has
struggled to attract a large base of donors supporting basic education,
GPE gave 60% of the country’s aid to basic education in 2011,
helping to boost donor support to the sector, at the same time they
have also helped to play a role in coordinating across partners as well
as channelling additional aid. Where this hasn’t worked as well, i.e.
in Niger, the GPE is giving give less than 10% of external funding
for basic education, the GPE seems to have not managed to channel
money or play a pivotal role in coordination.129

A yet untapped model for
future funding?
The overall decline in bilateral and multilateral funding for education
alongside the uncoordinated withdrawal from a number of countries
seem to suggest that the GPE has huge and, as yet, untapped, potential
to help improve country-level coordination, and channel more funds
to basic education. In recognition of the important role GPE has
played in forging an international partnership, in its report to the
UN Secretary General in May 2013, the United Nations High-Level
Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda
specifically singled out the GPE as an example of an effective multistakeholder financial partnership – pointing to this as an example ofthe kind of collaboration needed to deliver an ambitious post-2015
development vision. Furthermore, GPE’s current and forthcoming
strategic plans prioritise quality and the most marginalised children,
including girls, children with disabilities and those living in conflictaffected countries, to achieve greater equity and quality in education– both of which remain major concerns.
In addition, and crucially, the GPE’s model of support acrosseducation systems – in partnership with ministries, donor agencies
and civil society among others – behind a shared set of goals and an
agreed plan at country-level, offers an opportunity to continue tosupport both the improvement of quality and the progression along
the pathway of lifelong learning, as countries move towards this inrealising the SDG goals. However, doing so will involve increased
commitments to support education, especially basic education, in low
income countries and increased funding channelled through the GPE
to do this. Given this, it may now be the time for strengthening andreinforcing the partnership to deliver on the core commitments madearound education in the SDGs – helping to support countries mostin need to expand into pre-primary, primary and lower secondary –and to reinforce and strengthen this existing partnership.

BOX 3: From FTI to GPE: an ongoing journey toimproving the partnership
Twelve years ago donors came together to launch the
Education For All Fast Track Initiative (EFA-FTI) with the aimof harmonising their efforts to support developing country
governments with credible plans to deliver education for all. It
was widely hoped that the FTI would be a catalyst for accelerated
progress towards achieving the Education For All goals. The GPE
has played, and continues to play, a vital role in achieving theseambitions, although work remains to ensure its effectivenessto meet its mission. In 2011, the FTI was renamed the Global
Partnership for Education, and underwent significant reforms to
improve efforts to make it a more effective international actor.
Many of the reforms in governance, leadership and ensuring
more genuine national ownership have been welcomed by civilsociety. As part of this ongoing process of reform, work is being
done to further refine the GPE funding model to bring a clearer
sense of the GPE’s added value to education policy, funding anddelivery at the national level.
A total of 60 pledges and US$1.5 billion were committed
by partner countries and donor partners during the 2011
replenishment campaign. The GPE replenishment campaign in2014 aimed to raise funds for 2015–18 – and was an importantmoment in the history of the GPE. With aid to basic education
reducing, this could have been the moment when new pledges
helped to compensate for the reductions in financing for basic
education by many bilateral donors. It could have also signalleda change in the direction of travel in terms of raising funds forbasic education. In total the pledges from donors fell well shortof the target.
In total US$2.3 billion has so far been mobilised in support of
the GPE fund for 2015–2018. The EU, UK, Norway, Denmarkand Sweden all made significant pledges; Australia and the US
also made pledges but less than was hoped; and Canada, while
not making a financial commitment during the replenishment
conference itself, eventually pledged to double its contribution
to GPE. However, France, Germany, Japan, Spain and Italy weredeeply disappointing.
Positively, domestic resource commitments surpassed all
expectations (see Box 2). In 2014 over $26 billion in pledges
came from developing country governments themselves,committing to increase their domestic resource mobilisation for
education. This is ten times more than the $2.3 billion pledged bydonors so far.

129. Brookings Institution and UNESCO (2013) Financing for Global Education:
Opportunities for Multilateral Action. A report prepared for the UN Special Envoy for
Global Education for the High-level Roundtable on Learning for All: Coordinating
the Financing and Delivery of Education. Washington, DC / Paris: Center for
Universal Education at the Brookings Institution / Education for All Global
Monitoring Report.

Education Aid Watch 2015

55

BOX 4: A great step forward for transparency as the
GPE plans to report to OECD
Currently, the GPE does not report its aid flows to theOECD-DAC, in the way that global health funds such as‘GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance’ and the ‘Global Fund to Fight
AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria’ do. This means that data cannot
be compared with other bilateral and multilateral donors tobasic education (something which hampered the analysis forthis report).
Given the increasing importance of the GPE in supporting
country-level plans it is critical this happens in future. Not onlyis it vital for keeping track of disbursement of funds at country
level, and ensuring no double counting of aid, it is also critical tobe able to understand the role of the GPE vis-à-vis other donors.
Moreover, many bilateral agencies report their contributions into
the fund by classifying this as ‘bilateral unspecified’: this meansthat for a certain number of countries, such as Denmark, theirfull contribution to supporting basic education is not being fully
understood.
The GPE has announced its intention to release its data
in an IATI130-compatible format by the end of 2013 and its
intention to report into the OECD-DAC in the same way asother global funds. This is a welcome move towards ensuring afull understanding of aid commitments and the role of the GPE
more fully in future.
Source: Based on the analysis of the EFA Global Monitoring Reporthttps://efareport.wordpress.com/2014/07/04/a-great-step-forward-fortransparency-as-the-gpe-plans-to-report-to-oecd

The World Bank
The fourth largest education donor in 2013, the International
Development Association (IDA) of the World Bank is a significant
actor in the education sector. Its standing has declined in recent years
however, falling from being the second largest donor in educationin 2005.
Education aid as a share of total ODA from IDA has dropped froma (relatively) healthy allocation of around 10–12% over the 2007–2011
period down to 7.6% in 2012 and 9.3% in 2013. Apart from a dip
in 2006 (due not to a decrease in support to education but to theexceedingly high amounts of total ODA reported by the World Bank
that year), 2012 and 2013 represent the lowest proportion of IDA
support going to education over the whole of the MDG-EFA period– an unsettling development when opposite trends should instead beseen, as the World Bank should be accelerating support to achieve theeducation MDGs and EFA goals before 2015. Over the 2002–2013
period (the MDG-EFA period under examination) IDA disbursements
to education as a percentage of overall aid averaged around 10%. When
compared to other donors in this report, this shows a relatively higher
level of support to education – with this level being the sixth highest
proportion of aid to education over the 2002–2013 period.

FIGURE M5: World Bank Aid to education as % of ODA
2002–2013
14%
12%
10%

12.1%

12.5%

12.5%

12.1%

11.5%
10.7%

9.9%

10.4%

10.6%

9.3%
7.6%

8%
6%
4%
2%

2.5%

130. International Aid Transparency Initiative.

56 Global Campaign for Education

20
13

20
11
20
12

20
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10

0%

IDA has also been one of the most significant donors to basic
education over the MDG-EFA period. At the start of the period, its
support represented more than one quarter of total basic education
aid to all developing countries. However, with increased volumes fromcertain bilateral donors, IDA’s share of aid to basic education, as part ofall basic education aid provided by donors, has fallen.
Nevertheless, IDA has been the most significant, or one of thethree most significant, donors to basic education for much of the
MDG-EFA period. For instance, from 2002–2005 IDA was the largest
donor to basic education. In 2006, it dropped to being the second
largest and has not regained its title of largest basic education donor
since, though it has consistently stayed in top 3–5 donors.
However, there has been a notable decline in overall spendingon basic education in recent years. As Figure M7 shows, IDA
disbursements to basic education dropped down to their lowest levels
in 2012, plummeting to almost half of the average of what it had beenin years prior. With these levels, the fruits of the World Bank’s 2010
pledge to increase support to basic education by US$750 million or
40% by 2015 are yet to be seen.
Moreover, the level of aid to basic education as a ratio of total aid
has also declined – quite dramatically over recent years. While basic

education’s share of all IDA disbursements averaged nearly 8% in
the first years of the MDGs and EFA goals (2002–2005), it was halfthat – only 3.9% – in 2013. IDA support has gone from representing
close to a quarter of all aid to basic education at the beginning of the
MDG-EFA period to only 13% in 2013.

FIGURE M6: World Bank Total aid to basic education as% of ODA 2002–2013
9%
8%
7%
6%
5%
4%
3%
2%
1%
0%

8.3%

8.1%
7.1%

6.7%

7.0%
5.8%

6.3%

5.6%

5.2%
3.9%
3.0%

20
11
20
12
20
13

20
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10

1.3%

Interestingly, while IDA financing has shifted away from basic
education, the amount disbursed to least developed countries hasremained relatively stable – and with this the ratio of the amountcommitted to LDCs has skyrocketed from around 25% in 2010 toover 60% in 2013. This suggests that, in spite of an overall reduction in
support to basic education, a focus on LDCs has been retained. IDA
has also given a large boost to the levels of aid to basic education infragile states, which has nearly doubled since 2010.
Meanwhile, overall aid to post-primary education is on theincrease from the IDA, with a clear shift towards supporting secondary
education. The World Bank Education Strategy 2020 highlights theneed to support post-primary education to produce skilled populations
to become involved in the ‘knowledge economy’. In 2013, the total
aid to secondary education came very close to that of basic education,
due to both reductions in support to basic education and increases inspending on secondary education.

FIGURE M7: World Bank Education aid by level
2002–2013, US$ millions (US$, constant 2013)
1,000
750
500
250

Basic education
Post-secondary

Secondary education

20
13

20
12

11
20

20
04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10

20
03

20

02

0

Conclusions and looking to post-2015
In spite of recent reductions in education aid, and to basic educationin particular, the World Bank must continue to focus on education
moving forward. In client surveys by the World Bank, demand for
education financing, even in the form of loans, was found to be verystrong, with 41% of respondents in World Bank client countries
identifying this as the most important sector for support. Basiceducation was also the sec­tor with the highest demand for support
and atten­tion from the World Bank (again by 41% of respondents
in all client countries). However, support is currently in decline,
especially to basic education.
Moreover, the decline – particularly in basic education aid – frommajor donors like IDA is having a detrimental impact on levels offinance available in a number of countries and overall. The World Bank
has pointed to the role of GPE in filling these gaps in basic education,
but GPE was not designed to act as a sole donor to national education
systems. The World Bank must ensure that it is not contributing todecreases in the finance available for basic education and must ensure
coordinated financing of education sector plans with GPE.
The World Bank has a role which goes way beyond that of simply
a contributor of aid. In addition to being a major donor with an
influential role in its own education programming and support, theWorld Bank is the Supervising Entity for the majority of GPE grants(around 65%) and a member of the EFA Steering Committee, thus
it has an even stronger influence over global education priorities
and policies.
As the World Bank plays such an influential role in supporting
countries and shaping global policy, it will be even more important
to monitor, as the world moves towards implementing the post-2015
development agenda. Low levels of aid to secondary education, as
pointed out in the global summary of this report, are a major area ofconcern. Thus, it is welcome to see IDA scaling up aid to secondary
education – one of the few donors to be doing so. Neverthelessthis should not be done to the detriment of financing for primaryeducation, where the development agenda is far from complete.
Demand for financing for basic education is high, as evident in client
surveys and developing country requests of funds from GPE; as such,
IDA support to basic education should be restored to and exceed
previous levels, and should be coordinated closely with GPE toensure the greatest impact on the sector.

ANNEX 1: NOTES ON DEFINITION
AND DATA SOURCES
The MDG-EFA period
In this report the term ‘MDG-EFA period’ is used as shorthand for
discussing the aid record of a country over the MDG and the EFA
commitment timeframe, that is, 2000–2015. This refers, at its broadestlevel, to:••the six goals which constituted the comprehensive ‘Education forAll’ (EFA) agenda, covering all stages from early childhood to adultliteracy and learning, and including both quality and gender equity,
agreed at the World Education Forum in 2000 to be achievedby 2015;
the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) agreed at the UN in2000 to be achieved by 2015, and specifically to MDG 2: ‘achieve
universal primary education’ and MDG 3: ‘eliminate genderdisparity in primary and secondary education’.

The Education For All goals were agreed by 164 countries, and the
EFA Framework for Action included a donor commitment that “nocountry seriously committed to basic education will be thwarted in theachievement of this goal by lack of resources.” The MDGs were agreed
by 189 countries and the world’s leading development institutions, andalso contained a global commitment (or ‘global compact’) to channel
aid behind the target of ensuring all children completed a primaryeducation by 2015.
Considering the goals and targets, this report aims to take stockof the progress made around donor commitments investing in them– especially around the shared MDG and EFA goal of supporting
basic education.
However, as comparable data using the data/methodology in thisreport (see below) for all countries is only available for 2002–2013,
the actual timeframe referred to as the ‘MDG-EFA period’ is actually
only from these years. However, we believe this gives a robust enoughperiod to draw the conclusion for each country on their efforts to
support the advancement of the MDG education and EFA agendas.
In a few rare cases data is not available for this timeframe.
Specifically, for South Korea, this is only available from 2006–2013,
and for Denmark from 2003–2013.

Data sources
Background to data sources
The aid data analysis in this report is focused on concessional
financing, or official development assistance (ODA) for education, as
defined by the OECD-DAC.
The data is derived from the OECD International Development
Statistics (IDS) databases, which records information provided annuallyby all member countries of the OECD Development Assistance

58 Global Campaign for Education

Committee (DAC). The IDS comprises the DAC database, which
provides aggregate data, and the Creditor Reporting System (CRS),
which provides project- and activity-level data.
DAC ODA statistics are updated in December/January each year
for the preceding full calendar year (i.e. December 2014/January
2015 for the full year 2013). This means that the latest detailed figuresavailable via the DAC are for 2013, which have been used in thisreport. As DAC figures are often out of date due to this time-lag inpublishing, we have tried to supplement them with national figures,
which are more up-to-date, where these are available/applicable.
In April, total ODA figures are updated for the previous year (i.e.
in April 2015 figures on total aid are available for 2014), which means
there is a more up-to-date set of comparable figures across total aid as
a % of GNI in this report. Accurate disbursement data is only available
from 2002, hence the data for this report only runs from 2002 to 2013.

The OECD statistics are:•••available in either aid disbursements (annual expenditures) orcommitments (total multi-year value of a project in the year thatthe commitment is made)in current or constant (accounting for inflation and exchange ratechanges) US dollars
based on a calendar year.

All the data used in this report are in constant 2013 US dollars,
and are for disbursements, unless otherwise stated.
DAC statistics require donor self-reporting and, in the past, havebeen more complete for commitments than disbursements, so in somerare cases both have been used. Previously, due to this, the Global
Campaign for Education has used commitment data in other reports.
However, in this report, all data is in disbursements unless otherwise
stated (see commitment and disbursement definitions below).
All calculations are the authors’ own. All data was accessed May –July 2015.

Defining different levels of education
The OECD presents DAC-ODA data on education in four categories:‘basic education’, ‘secondary education’, ‘post-secondary education’ and‘education level unspecified’. As defined by the DAC:•••

basic education covers primary education, basic life skills for youth
and adults, and early childhood education;
secondary education covers both general secondary education andvocational training;post-secondary education includes advanced technical andmanagerial training, as well as higher education;

•

Education, level unspecified, which refers to any activity thatcannot be attributed solely to the development of a particularlevel of education, such as education research and teacher training.
General education programme support is often reported within
this subcategory, as is support given to the Global Partnership for
Education from bilateral donor budgets.

National profiles information
From time to time the country profiles have used data innational currency or from a source other than DAC. Where this is thecase, it is indicated in the data section, or is clearly footnoted.

When these categories have been used in the report this is referred
to as ‘direct’ aid to education, denoting this is direct sector allocable aid.
Unless referred to as ‘direct aid’, the data uses the below classifications
to calculate ‘total aid to education’.

Calculations used in this report
This report calculates ODA to different levels of educa­tion byusing the methodology which the EFA Global Monitoring Report
uses – defined as ‘total aid to education’ in this report. To calculatedifferent levels/categories of education this uses a combination of:•••

direct allocable aid using the DAC categories above
a proportion of level unspecified
a percentage of general budget support.

Specifically the different levels/categories of ‘total’ aid to education’are calculated as follows:
1. Total aid to education: direct aid to education plus 20% ofgeneral budget support (aid provided to governments without
being earmarked for specific projects or sectors) to represent theestimated 15% to 25% of budget support that typically benefits theeducation sector.
2. Total aid to basic education: direct aid to basic education from
DAC categories, plus 10% of general budget support, plus 50%
of education ‘level unspecified’.
3. Total aid to secondary education: Direct secondary aid to
education from DAC categories, plus 5% general budget support,
and 25% education level unspecified.
4. Total aid to post-secondary education: direct aid to postSecondary aid to education, plus 5% general budget support,
and 25% education level unspecified.
Multilateral ODA reported in this paper refers to aid attributed
to multilateral agencies by OECD-DAC.

Commitment and disbursement figures
A commitment is a firm obligation by a donor, expressed in writing
and backed by the necessary funds, to provide specified assistance toa country or multilateral organisation.
Disbursements record the actual international transfer of financial
resources or of goods or services. As the aid committed in a given
year can be disbursed later, sometimes over several years, the annual
aid figures based on commitments cannot be directly compared to
disbursements.

Education Aid Watch 201559

ANNEX 2: GLOBAL RANKINGTABLESFor the methodology used please
see Annex 1.
All data is taken from CRS. All calculations: Global Campaign
for Education.

AID TO EDUCATION AS A % OF OVERALL ODA
Average
2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

'EFA-MDG'France

21.4%

17.5%

22.5%

14.0%

16.9%

25.9%

23.3%

21.8%

20.1%

17.2%

16.4%

18.2%

19.60%

Germany

5.3%

19.1%

20.8%

13.6%

15.7%

15.2%

15.1%

20.8%

18.0%

17.9%

16.9%

15.2%

16.13%

14.3%

20.7%

11.5%

12.3%

16.1%

17.7%

17.1%

15.7%

15.68%

spend

Republicof Korea
Ireland

18.6%

17.2%

14.2%

12.9%

10.8%

12.2%

13.2%

13.6%

12.0%

11.8%

9.0%

9.7%

12.93%

Canada

21.9%

19.6%

11.5%

7.7%

9.4%

11.9%

9.3%

11.5%

12.2%

8.8%

7.9%

7.8%

11.63%

World Bank

9.9%

12.1%

12.5%

12.5%

2.5%

10.7%

10.4%

11.5%

10.6%

12.1%

7.6%

9.3%

10.13%

UK

6.3%

10.2%

10.6%

5.5%

7.7%

12.0%

7.5%

12.0%

10.5%

12.9%

12.0%

13.5%

10.06%

Australia

12.6%

9.2%

9.5%

5.9%

8.7%

8.9%

10.8%

12.1%

8.6%

10.5%

12.1%

9.8%

9.90%

Spain

11.5%

9.4%

8.0%

11.0%

9.8%

10.0%

9.5%

8.1%

8.4%

10.6%

9.9%

6.8%

9.42%

Norway

9.4%

8.1%

11.8%

10.2%

9.9%

10.3%

10.0%

9.7%

9.0%

8.5%

8.3%

7.0%

9.33%

All DACdonors

7.2%

9.3%

9.1%

6.9%

8.3%

10.2%

8.9%

10.1%

9.4%

8.8%

9.2%

8.5%

8.83%

All donors

8.0%

9.6%

9.4%

7.5%

6.2%

9.9%

8.8%

9.7%

9.1%

8.7%

8.4%

8.1%

8.62%

EU

9.3%

8.0%

8.5%

7.9%

8.2%

8.0%

7.0%

8.5%

9.8%

6.2%

6.1%

6.0%

7.79%

8.0%

5.9%

6.0%

5.9%

6.4%

5.4%

5.1%

7.4%

9.4%

9.8%

6.4%

6.88%

Denmark
Japan

2.5%

8.4%

5.8%

5.7%

6.4%

7.2%

6.3%

8.2%

7.2%

6.1%

6.3%

6.2%

6.35%

Netherlands

7.6%

6.9%

8.2%

8.7%

12.8%

16.4%

12.4%

11.8%

11.3%

9.4%

6.9%

6.0%

9.86%

Italy

2.5%

3.2%

10.9%

3.0%

3.0%

3.3%

4.8%

11.3%

7.3%

4.2%

8.1%

5.6%

5.60%

USA

1.4%

3.0%

2.3%

2.2%

2.3%

3.3%

3.2%

3.4%

3.2%

2.6%

3.7%

3.3%

2.83%

60

Global Campaign for Education

AID TO BASIC EDUCATION AS A % OF OVERALL ODA
Average
2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

'EFA-MDG'

Ireland

10.7%

9.7%

9.0%

8.0%

7.2%

7.4%

7.5%

8.4%

6.8%

7.5%

4.8%

4.6%

7.6%

UK

4.2%

7.2%

8.4%

4.3%

6.2%

9.0%

4.8%

7.7%

6.0%

8.1%

7.3%

6.8%

6.7%

Canada

8.3%

8.8%

5.5%

5.4%

6.6%

8.3%

6.4%

6.0%

6.0%

5.2%

4.7%

4.1%

6.3%

Netherlands

5.6%

3.8%

4.8%

5.1%

10.0%

12.6%

8.4%

6.9%

6.4%

4.7%

3.0%

2.4%

6.1%

Norway

5.1%

5.0%

7.4%

6.6%

6.1%

6.7%

6.7%

6.4%

5.9%

6.1%

6.0%

5.2%

6.1%

World Bank

6.7%

8.1%

7.1%

8.3%

1.3%

5.2%

5.8%

6.3%

5.6%

7.0%

3.0%

3.9%

5.6%

Australia

3.7%

3.3%

3.9%

3.3%

4.2%

3.6%

6.0%

4.7%

4.1%

5.6%

6.9%

5.5%

4.6%

Spain

3.9%

3.0%

2.7%

4.2%

3.6%

5.2%

4.9%

4.5%

4.7%

3.9%

3.9%

3.0%

4.0%

4.4%

3.7%

3.8%

3.5%

3.9%

3.2%

2.6%

3.9%

5.2%

4.6%

2.9%

3.8%

spend

Denmark
All donors

3.5%

3.6%

3.8%

3.1%

2.5%

4.1%

3.8%

4.2%

3.9%

3.8%

3.4%

3.0%

3.6%

EU

4.2%

4.0%

4.5%

4.1%

3.8%

3.3%

3.3%

3.4%

4.5%

2.6%

2.3%

2.3%

3.5%

All DACdonors

2.6%

2.9%

3.1%

2.2%

3.0%

3.9%

3.5%

4.0%

3.6%

3.4%

3.6%

3.2%

3.3%

2.6%

4.3%

2.0%

2.9%

2.4%

3.1%

3.4%

3.3%

3.0%

Republic of
Korea
France

2.9%

2.1%

2.5%

0.8%

1.4%

3.6%

4.3%

4.2%

4.1%

3.1%

2.8%

2.7%

2.9%

Germany

1.9%

2.0%

2.3%

1.1%

1.5%

1.4%

2.2%

3.5%

3.4%

3.6%

3.0%

2.4%

2.4%

Italy

1.1%

1.0%

4.8%

1.3%

1.2%

1.1%

1.6%

5.3%

2.5%

1.7%

3.4%

2.3%

2.3%

USA

0.8%

2.0%

1.8%

1.6%

1.6%

2.4%

2.3%

2.6%

2.4%

2.0%

3.0%

2.6%

2.1%

Japan

1.3%

1.9%

1.8%

1.3%

1.6%

2.0%

1.6%

2.4%

2.2%

1.6%

2.0%

2.6%

1.9%

Education Aid Watch 2015

61

TOTAL AID TO SECONDARY EDUCATION AS % OF OVERALL ODA (UNESCO CALCULATION)
Average
2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

'EFA-MDG'
spend

Republic of
Korea

4.2%

6.9%

6.2%

4.6%

7.8%

7.0%

6.8%

5.7%

6.2%

Ireland

3.5%

3.4%

2.0%

2.4%

2.0%

2.2%

3.2%

2.9%

2.6%

2.2%

2.0%

2.4%

2.6%

Spain

3.4%

2.6%

2.2%

2.8%

2.7%

2.1%

1.9%

1.9%

1.9%

2.9%

3.2%

2.0%

2.5%

World Bank

1.5%

1.7%

3.2%

1.8%

0.6%

2.5%

2.2%

2.1%

2.9%

2.8%

2.4%

3.5%

2.4%

France

1.9%

1.3%

1.5%

0.3%

1.0%

3.9%

4.4%

4.3%

3.5%

1.9%

2.1%

2.3%

2.4%

Australia

2.3%

2.1%

1.9%

1.3%

1.3%

1.9%

2.1%

5.6%

2.4%

2.0%

2.4%

1.8%

2.3%

Germany

0.9%

1.7%

2.0%

1.4%

2.6%

2.3%

1.7%

2.2%

1.7%

1.8%

1.7%

1.6%

1.8%

Canada

2.1%

2.4%

1.3%

1.2%

1.3%

1.7%

1.4%

2.3%

2.1%

1.5%

1.8%

2.2%

1.8%

EU

2.5%

1.8%

1.7%

1.5%

2.1%

1.9%

1.5%

2.1%

1.9%

1.5%

1.4%

1.2%

1.7%

UK

1.2%

1.6%

1.1%

0.6%

0.7%

1.1%

1.1%

1.9%

2.0%

2.3%

2.1%

3.8%

1.6%

1.1%

1.3%

1.3%

1.3%

1.6%

1.6%

1.6%

2.0%

1.2%

1.5%

Denmark

1.7%

Italy

0.6%

0.7%

2.9%

0.6%

0.7%

0.9%

1.3%

2.3%

2.6%

1.0%

2.1%

1.6%

1.4%

All donors

1.3%

1.2%

1.4%

0.9%

0.9%

1.6%

1.4%

1.7%

1.6%

1.4%

1.5%

1.7%

1.4%

All DACdonors

1.0%

1.1%

1.0%

0.8%

1.0%

1.4%

1.4%

1.7%

1.4%

1.3%

1.4%

1.5%

1.3%

Japan

0.4%

1.1%

1.2%

0.7%

0.8%

1.1%

1.0%

1.4%

1.0%

1.1%

1.3%

1.3%

1.0%

Norway

1.2%

0.8%

1.4%

1.2%

1.4%

1.0%

0.9%

1.0%

0.9%

0.8%

0.7%

0.6%

1.0%

Netherlands

0.5%

0.4%

0.5%

0.9%

0.5%

0.9%

1.0%

1.2%

1.1%

1.0%

0.9%

0.7%

0.8%

0.4%

0.1%

0.3%

0.3%

0.4%

0.4%

0.3%

0.1%

0.2%

0.2%

0.2%

0.3%

USA

62

Global Campaign for Education

TOTAL AID TO POST-SECONDARY EDUCATION AS % OF OVERALL ODA (UNESCO CALCULATION)
Average
2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

'EFA-MDG'France

16.6%

14.1%

18.4%

12.9%

14.5%

18.4%

14.6%

13.3%

12.5%

12.2%

11.5%

13.3%

14.4%

Germany

2.5%

15.4%

16.5%

11.1%

11.6%

11.4%

11.2%

15.1%

12.9%

12.6%

12.2%

11.2%

12.0%

7.6%

9.6%

3.3%

4.8%

5.9%

7.6%

6.9%

6.7%

6.6%

spend

Republic of
Korea
All DACdonors

3.6%

5.3%

4.9%

3.8%

4.3%

4.8%

4.1%

4.4%

4.4%

4.2%

4.2%

3.8%

4.3%

Canada

11.7%

8.6%

5.1%

1.6%

2.1%

2.1%

1.8%

2.7%

4.0%

2.1%

1.5%

1.5%

3.7%

All donors

3.2%

4.7%

4.3%

3.5%

2.8%

4.2%

3.6%

3.8%

3.6%

3.4%

3.5%

3.2%

3.7%

Japan

0.7%

5.5%

2.8%

3.6%

4.0%

4.2%

3.7%

4.4%

4.0%

3.4%

2.9%

2.4%

3.5%

Australia

6.6%

3.8%

3.7%

1.2%

3.2%

3.4%

2.7%

1.8%

2.1%

2.9%

2.8%

2.5%

3.1%

Spain

4.3%

3.8%

3.2%

4.0%

3.4%

2.7%

2.7%

1.7%

1.8%

3.8%

2.8%

1.8%

3.0%

Netherlands

1.5%

2.7%

3.0%

2.7%

2.4%

2.9%

3.0%

3.7%

3.8%

3.7%

3.1%

2.8%

2.9%

Ireland

4.4%

4.1%

3.2%

2.6%

1.6%

2.6%

2.5%

2.4%

2.6%

2.2%

2.2%

2.7%

2.8%

EU

2.6%

2.2%

2.3%

2.3%

2.3%

2.8%

2.2%

3.0%

3.3%

2.1%

2.4%

2.5%

2.5%

Norway

3.0%

2.3%

3.1%

2.3%

2.4%

2.5%

2.4%

2.3%

2.1%

1.6%

1.6%

1.3%

2.2%

World Bank

1.6%

2.4%

2.2%

2.4%

0.6%

2.9%

2.4%

3.2%

2.0%

2.3%

2.2%

1.9%

2.2%

Italy

0.7%

1.5%

3.3%

1.1%

1.1%

1.3%

1.9%

3.7%

2.2%

1.5%

2.6%

1.7%

1.9%

UK

1.0%

1.4%

1.1%

0.6%

0.8%

1.9%

1.6%

2.5%

2.5%

2.5%

2.6%

2.9%

1.8%

1.9%

1.2%

1.2%

1.1%

1.1%

1.0%

0.9%

1.9%

2.6%

3.2%

2.3%

1.7%

0.7%

0.4%

0.3%

0.4%

0.5%

0.5%

0.5%

0.7%

0.4%

0.5%

0.5%

0.5%

DenmarkUSA

0.4%

Education Aid Watch 201563

About the Global Campaign
for Education
The Global Campaign for Education
is a civil society coalition that callson governments to deliver theright of everyone to a free, quality,
public education. Operating in over
90 countries and dozens more acrossour regional and international networks,
GCE members include grassroots
organisations, teachers’ unions, childrights groups and international NGOs.
GCE members & coalitions(by region/classification)
Italics denote coalitions supported by GCE through the Civil Society
Education Fund, but which are not yet GCE Members.

AfricaAngola: Rede de Educação Para Todos (EPT); Bénin: Coalition
Béninoise des Organisations pour l’EPT (CBO-EPT); Burkina Faso:
Coalition Nationale EPT du Burkina Faso (CNEPT); Burundi:
Coalition pour l’Education Pour Tous (BAFASHEBIGE); Cameroon:
Cameroun Education For All Network (CEFAN); Cape Verde:
Rede Nacional da Campanha de Educação Para Todos (RNCEPT) Cap
Vert; Côte D’Ivoire: Réseau Ivoirien pour Education Pour Tous
(RIP-EPT); Democratic Republic of Congo: Coordination Nationale
Pour l’Education Pour Tous (CONEPT); Djibouti: FADE; Ethiopia:
Basic Education Association in Ethiopia; Gambia: EFA Campaign
Network (EFANET); Ghana: Ghana National Education Campaign
Coalition (GNECC); Guinea-Bissau: Réseau de la Campagne del’Education Pour Tous Guiné-Bissau (RECEPT/GB); Kenya: Elimu
Yetu Coalition; Lesotho: Campaign for Education Forum (CEF);
Madagascar: Coalition Nationale Malgache Pour l’Education Pour
Tous; Malawi: Civil Society Education Coalition (CSEC); Mali:
Coalition des Organisations de la Société Civile pour l’Education
Pour Tous (COSC-EPT); Mauritania: Coalition des Organisations
Mauritaniennes pour l’Education (COMEDUC); Mauritius: DCI;
Morocco: Moroccan Coalition of Education for All; Mozambique:
Movimento de Educação para Todos (MEPT); Niger: Coordination
Nationale des Associations, Syndicats et ONGS pour la Campagne
EPT (ASO-EPT); Nigeria: Civil Society Action Coalition for
Education For All (CSACEFA); Rwanda: Rwanda Education For All

66

Global Campaign for Education

Coalition (REFAC); Senegal: Coordination des ONG et Syndicats
pour la Défense d’une Education Publique de Qualité (COSYDEP);
Sierra Leone: Education For All Sierra Leone (EFASL); Somalia:
Education For All Somalia (EFASOM); Somaliland: Somaliland
Network for EFA (SOLNEFA); Sudan: Sudanese Coalition For
Education For All (SCEFA); Swaziland: Swaziland Network
Campaign for Education For All (SWANCEFA); Tanzania: Tanzania
Education Network/Mtandao wa Elimu Tanzania (TEN/MET);
Togo: Coalition Nationale Togolaise pour l’EPT; Uganda: Forumfor Education NGOs in Uganda (FENU); Zambia: Zambia National
Education Coalition (ZANEC); Zimbabwe: Education Coalition ofZimbabwe (ECOZI)

Asia
Afghanistan: Movement for Support of Quality Education in
Afghanistan (MSQEA); Australia: Australia Coalition for Education
and Development (ACED); Bangladesh: Campaign for Popular
Education (CAMPE); Cambodia: NGO Education Partnership(NEP); India: National Coalition for Education NCE; Indonesia:
NEW Indonesia; Japan: Japan NGO Network for Education (JNNE);
Mongolia: All For Education! National Civil Society Coalition ofMongolia (AFE Mongolia); Myanmar: National Network for Education
Reform; Nepal: NCE Nepal; Pakistan: Pakistan Coalition for
Education (PCE); Papua New Guinea: PNG Education Advocacy
Network (PEAN); Philippines: Civil Society Network for Education
Reforms (E-Net Philippines); Solomon Islands: Coalition For
Education Solomon Islands (COESI); Sri Lanka: Coalition for
Educational Development (CED); Timor Leste: Timor Leste
Coalition for Education (TLCE); Vanuatu: Vanuatu Education Policy
Advocacy Coalition (VEPAC); Vietnam: Vietnam Coalition on
Education for All (VCEFA)

Latin America
Argentina: Campaña Argentina por el Derecho a la Educación(CADE); Bolivia: Campaña Boliviana por el Derecho a la Educación(CBDE); Brazil: Campanha Nacional pelo Direito à Educação;Chile: Foro por el Derecho a la Educación; Colombia: Coalición
Colombiana por el Derecho a la Educación; Costa Rica: Agenda
Ciudadana por la Educación; Dominican Republic: Foro
Socioeducativo Républica Dominicana; Ecuador: Contrato Social Por
la Educación Ecuador; Guatemala: Colectivo de Educación para
Todas y Todos; Haiti: Regroupement Education pour Toutes/Tous(REPT); Honduras: Foro Dakar Honduras; Mexico: Incidencia
Civil en la Educación (ICE); Nicaragua: Foro de Educación yDesarrollo Humano De La Iniciativa Por Nicaragua; Paraguay:
Foro por la Derecho a la Educación; Peru: Campaña Peruana por
el Derecho a la Educación (CPDE)

Middle East
Egypt: Egyptians Without Borders For Development; Iraq: Iraqi
Alliance for Education (IAE); Jordan: Jordanian National Coalition
for EFA; Lebanon: Arab Network for Popular Education (ANPE);
Palestine: Palestinian Education Coalition; Yemen: Yemeni Coalition
for Education for All

Europe/North America
Albania: Albanian Coalition for Child Education (ACCE); Armenia:
Armenian Constitutional Right-Protective Centre; Denmark:The Danish NGO Education Network; France: Solidarité Laїque;Georgia: Georgian Coalition For Education For All; Germany:
Globale Bildungskampagne (GCE Germany); Ireland: GCE Ireland;
Italy: Coalizione Italiana delle Campagna Globale per l’Educazione(CGE); Moldova: Work Group of Education For All; Norway: GCE
Network Norway; Portugal: Campanha Global pela Educação;Romania: Coalitia Globala pentru Educatie – GCE Romania; Spain:
Campaña Mundial por la Educación en España; Sweden: Swedish
EFA Forum; Switzerland: Reseau Suisse des Partenaires pour l’Education; The Netherlands: GCE Netherlands; UK: GCE UK;
USA: GCE US

Regional
Africa Network Campaign for Education for All (ANCEFA); ArabCampaign for Education for All (ACEA); Arab Network for Civic
Education (ANHRE); Asia South Pacific Association for Basic andAdult Education (ASPBAE); Campaña Latinoamericana por el
Derecho a la Educación (CLADE); Consejo de Educación de Adultos
de América Latina (CEAAL); Fédération Africaine des Associations
Nationales de Parents d’Elèves et Etudiants (FAPE); Forum for African
Women Educationalists (FAWE); Fe y Alegria; Fundacion Ayuda en
Accion; Red de Educación Popular Entre Mujeres de América Latina
y el Caribe (REPEM)International
ActionAid International; CBM; Education International; Global
March Against Child Labour; IBIS; International Council for
Education of People with Visual Impairment (ICEVI); International
Day of the African Child and Youth (IDAY); Light for the World;
Oxfam International; Plan International; RESULTS; Save theChildren; SightSavers International;VSO International

Education Aid Watch 201567

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