Sophie Edwards
(From previous issue)
But the GPE has been working hard to reform and evolve in response to these criticisms and others, in a bid to become a leading global education player.
Battle for funding
Education experts disagree about whether the partnership is able to meet its $3.1 billion target. Earlier this month, the European Commission became the first pledger, committing an additional 100 million euros ($118.4 million) and bringing its total contribution for the 2018-2020 period to 287.5 million euros ($340.4 million). The Commission’s announcement came at the start of the GPE board meeting in Paris. While experts said they had hoped that other countries would also use the opportunity to make pledges – in particular France, Sweden, and the U.K., whose governments have been supportive of the GPE’s efforts – they added it was to be expected that most would wait until the February conference.
But past replenishment rounds have fallen short, raising $1.65 billion of the hoped for $2.5 billion in the first round for 2011 to 2014; and $2.1 billion out of a proposed $3.5 billion for the second round, which had been intended to cover activities between 2015 and 2018. In addition, the GPE lost approximately $360 million in exchange rate fluctuations over the last replenishment period, which a spokesperson said contributed to the decision to head into its next replenishment phase a year early. This track record could explain why, despite the apparent growing momentum behind global education, the GPE has opted for what the spokesperson described as a “conservative” target of $3.1 billion, which would largely be spent on grants to support developing countries to design and implement comprehensive education sector plans. According to a case for investment document, the funding will enable 19 million additional children to finish primary school and 6.6 million children to complete lower secondary school. In addition, 1.7 million teachers will be trained; 23,800 classrooms built; and 204 million textbooks handed out.
Symbolically, achieving the $3.1 billion target would be “hugely important” in terms of creating “visibility and recognition” for the GPE and the global education agenda more broadly, according to Pauline Rose, professor of international education at Cambridge University.
Education is so underfunded that while setting an achievable target may prove “wise,” it also means “there’s only so much they can do with the money,” Rose said. But other experts pointed out that the GPE’s approach – which requires developing partner countries to increase domestic funding for education to at least 20 percent in order to be eligible for support – means the partnership mobilizes more financing than some other multilateral funds. The GPE says it also works to leverage additional education funding from investors and multilateral development banks. “The GPE way of working is more about working with governments and system reform,” compared to health spending, according to David Archer, head of education at Action Aid. Even if the partnership has a “smaller pot” compared to major health funds, the amount of money it is able to leverage is “probably more,” he said.
Gayle Smith, former head of the U.S. Agency for International Development and now head of the ONE Campaign, described the GPE as a “a multilateral vehicle that hopefully can be a force multiplier,” and can also provide “a vehicle for a lot of donors who don’t have bilateral [education] programs.” She said ONE would be assisting the GPE’s efforts by “pushing African governments to put more money into education,” while at the same time campaigning to “protect the education line item in the U.S. budget.”
The parliamentary International Development Committee has published its inquiry into U.K. aid spending on education – with a loud call of support for the Global Partnership for Education, but skepticism about investments in private schools.
Many replenishment hopes have been pinned on the U.K., the GPE’s largest donor.
The International Development Committee, the parliamentary committee that oversees the work of the U.K. Department for International Development, has been lobbying heavily for an early pledge to the partnership, and and for DFID to provide the full requested amount of $500 million. This could help encourage other donors to follow suit, according to Stephen Twigg, chair of the IDC and a Labour member of parliament.
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“The GPE’s unique funding model makes it an absolutely crucial part of any solution, and supporting it boldly would demonstrate the credibility of the U.K.’s commitment to global education,” Twigg said, adding “that’s why we recommended to government that this strong partnership continues, and the U.K. leads the way.”
However, the abrupt change in leadership at the top of DFID will likely mean the U.K. pledge comes at a later date, political insiders said. Gillard was slated to meet with senior DFID officials last week.
Education’s health sector moment?
While total global official development assistance has been increasing, education’s share of this funding has been on the decline since 2010 and is still 4 percent lower than 2010 levels, according to a recent UNESCO Global Education Monitoring report. Preprimary and primary education has been hit hardest, it says. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development data puts the three-year annual average in aid commitments for education during the period 2013 to 2015 at $15.7 billion, while in health the figure is $29 billion for the same period.
Several of the experts who spoke to Devex talked about the need for a “health sector moment” for education.
According to Smith, the education sector needs to attain the kind of political and financial “traction and scale” achieved by the global health community, most notably in relation to HIV/AIDS under U.S. President George W. Bush.
(Sophie Edwards is a reporter for Devex based out of Washington D.C. and London where she covers global development news, careers and lifestyle issues. She has previously worked for NGOs, the World Bank and spent a number of years as a journalist for a regional newspaper in the U.K. She has an MA from the Institute of Development Studies and a BA from Cambridge University).
