Expanding
the sources of financing
37. Due to the political climate and policy-making
processes in the individual DAC member countries, the
perspectives for increased ODA would be medium to long
term rather than short term. New sources of financing
are therefore essential. These may include, for instance,
certain former aid recipient countries and non-DAC OECD
member countries, as has happened in the case of the Republic
of Korea.
38. Private investment financing currently represents
a far more important source than ODA. Since these flows
are directed towards investment-safe environments, they
are less prone to support the least developed countries
or less profitable areas, such as education. ODA must,
therefore, support the creation of enabling environments
through stable macro-economic and political circumstances
and act as a catalyst to attract private investment as
well as external lending.
39.
New partnerships may be forged among the financial services
industry, the state and civil society to promote educational
and social development and to link private and public
finance with public education (Berg, 2000; Findakly and
Berg, 1997). The overall purpose would be to build solid
financial systems, inter alia through benefiting from
the potential of private financial markets, which are
growing in many parts of the world where basic challenges
for education remain, and to use different funding mechanisms
to relieve pressure on the public systems. Multilateral
capital could be used for intermediation purposes, i.e.
to facilitate the flows of savings from economies that
have managed to accumulate capital to the ones that are
in urgent need for it. Intergovernmental and regional
development banks could assist in fostering the growth
of debt markets in developing countries by, for example,
deploying liquidity in order to attract private capital,
and by devising specific financial instruments to leverage
the private market while providing risk reduction and
security.
40.
Contributions may be increased through intensified
collaboration with national and international non-governmental
organizations (NGOs), private foundations and large-scale
corporate foundations. At the national level, NGOs, community-based
organizations and other private, charitable organizations
are a potentially strong mechanism for collaboration among
government, the business community and private citizens
that could lead to focusing private charity towards organized
investment in human and social capital and, therefore,
educational development. This can be exemplified by indigenous
philanthropy in Pakistan which has been estimated at an
aggregate amount of Rs 70 billion in charity donations
for 1998 (Bonbright and Azfar, 1999).
41.
National and international NGOs are particularly important
as alternative service providers for education, often
spearheading innovation, relevance and cost-efficient
delivery. It is essential for the successful achievement
of EFA goals that such experiences are internalized, multiplied
and reflected in wider systemic development. Other innovative
programming, such as inter-agency flagship programmes
(see (d) below) and other kinds of multi-country programmes,
represent new ways of both increased and more effective
use of education financing.
42.
A number of private foundations, such as the Ford
Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Aga Khan Foundation
and the Bernard van Leer Foundation, have long supported
education programmes in different sub-sectors of education.
They should be encouraged by the EFA movement to intensify
or reorient their support in favour of Education for All.
Other foundations, established more recently, such as
the United Nations Foundation (Ted Turner), the Melissa
and Bill Gates Foundation, the Gates Library Foundation
and the Soros Foundation are other sources which have
not yet been fully exploited for EFA. Big corporate foundations
and IT companies are other potential allies in the move
towards the EFA goals.
43.
It is essential, however, that any established and intensified
cooperation with the private sector is undertaken in consideration
of governments' declared and accepted responsibility to
provide free and compulsory basic education for all. The
right to free education must be simultaneously secured
through abolition of direct and indirect user fees at
the basic level, while cost-sharing may be considered
by national governments at other levels of the education
system.
44.
All EFA partners have a critical role in public awareness-raising
and appropriate communication concerning Education for
All as means to sustain political will and increase national
support for Education for All. Such communication and
awareness-raising could be accompanied by innovative fund-raising
through market-oriented events, such as concerts or lotteries,
and through brief news broadcasts on Education for All
on the major international television channels.
45.
In order to reinforce increased external financing, the
EFA movement should design advocacy and communication
strategies for Education for All addressed at the different
key education audiences, including the general public,
and lobby parliamentarians and other potential financial
sources.
(b)
Ensuring greater predictability in the flow of external
assistance
46. Predictability in the flow of external assistance
rests, on one hand, on the capacity of aid providers to
fulfil negotiated commitments according to specified time
schedules and, on the other, on the capacity of aid-receiving
countries to absorb and use the funding in accordance
with defined goals and targets. This underlines the need
for coherence and coordination of cross-sectoral policies
and plans within and between aid-providing as well as
aid-receiving countries, and for governments and development
partners to agree on stipulated goals and targets for
overall development and specific sector development. Uniformity
and mutuality will necessarily be constricted by the diversity
of interests which continues to exist within and across
aid-providing countries, partly based on underlying differences
in the purposes for external assistance.
47.
Both national governments and development partners
should set financial targets for Education for All which
reflect sincere political commitment. Particular understanding
must be reached at the national level between Ministries
of Finance and Ministries of Education concerning the
appropriate proportion of the government budget that would
reflect such clear commitment. Both governments and development
partners should guarantee commitment for the medium (5-8
years) to long term (10-12 years) rather than the short
term (three years). Predictability should, moreover, be
based on removal of bottlenecks because of aid conditionalities
or deficient human and institutional capacities which
prevent implementation of programmes to meet the identified
goals and targets.
48.
Predictability and mutuality in support should be reflected
in transparent procedures which take their point of departure
in recipient country needs rather than aid-providing country
interests. This includes improving and/or removing a number
of constrictions and conditionalities which have long
been identified as impeding national ownership and holistic
development efforts. These include: tying of aid, freezing
of staff recruitment and wages, specified budget cuts,
lack of indexing to inflation and delays in disbursement.
49.
In addition to reviewing specific constricting aid conditionalities,
development partners must, individually and collectively,
re-examine whether the areas and modalities of their support
favour the broad concept of Education for All. Thus, in
1996, of total ODA education support, the majority (52%)
supported the areas of secondary, post-secondary and higher
education, against 48% for adult, pre-primary and primary
education (of which primary-school education alone constituted
almost half (22%)). Similarly, World Bank lending to the
Africa region during financial years 1995/99 was allocated
to the formal education system, with pre-primary education
constituting only 2% of the total and primary education
46%. Development partners and national governments must,
furthermore, review the implications for financial predictability
and holistic educational development of the persisting
division of funding responsibilities at the country level
through which governments cover teacher salaries, communities
and parents cover recurrent expenditure, and international
funding and technical assistance agencies cover capital
and development expenditure.
50.
The current climate of scarce aid resources and the
associated concern with aid effectiveness have led both
lending organizations, such as the World Bank and IMF,
and DAC member countries, such as the Netherlands and
the United Kingdom, to underline that aid provision must
be determined by the existence of "good" national
policies, based on macro-economic reform and political
criteria associated with democracy (OECD/DAC, 2000). This
approach relies on extensive research on the impact of
aid which claims that economies lag more because of policy
gaps and institutional failures in recipient countries
than because of financing. Aid should, therefore, support
the policy and institutional environment as a basis for
effective service delivery, for example of education (Dollar
and Pritchett, 1998).
51.
In the context of the global initiative, it is significant
to reiterate the importance of stipulating social development
and Education for All goals as core objectives for national
development processes alongside macro- economic targets
and political criteria. It is also important to underline
the understanding of the initiative as an inclusive, rather
than an exclusive one. This is partly because the attention
to aid effectiveness has happened as the collapse of communism
and expanded globalization have further marginalized certain
regions, countries and population groups, and established
new, or reinforced existing, poverty pockets within countries
in the North and the South. Civil war, natural disasters
and the HIV/AIDS pandemic have created the need for additional
and innovative international assistance in environments
with unstable economic and political conditions, HIV/AIDS
now receiving special attention through recently established
global funds. Recent economic and political developments,
such as the East Asian financial crisis, the effects of
the oil shock and responses to terrorism, highlight the
likelihood of further increased dependence on international
assistance on the one hand, and risks of reduction and
unpredictability of funding on the other. Information
technology represents another mechanism either to develop
or to divide regions, countries and population groups
even further.
52.
Support for Education for All through the global initiative
must be strategically targeted in response to diversified
country needs. It could act as an incentive mechanism
for countries which make a particular effort to reorient
their policies, plans and programmes towards national
EFA goals and targets. It must also, however, recognize
the key unifying role which education plays in post-conflict
countries that are more often characterized by macro-economic
instability than stability. Similarly, education is of
key importance in countries characterized by political
crisis situations, often associated with the collapse
of the state, or in other emergency situations causing
economic and political disruption. Even in attractive
macro-economic circumstances, political will and supportive
national and sub-national policies, including distribution
policies - determined by the complexity of social factors
in the specific context at the specific time - are necessary
preconditions for education to become a lever for economic
growth, for economic growth to become a lever for educational
development, and for educational development and economic
growth to result in decreased poverty and sustainable
development.
53. To reinforce the predictability of external
financing, the EFA movement should organize national and
regional high-level meetings involving Heads of State,
Prime Ministers, Ministers of Education and Ministers
of Finance in order to ensure long-term financial support
for Education for All in light of nationally determined
resource gaps. It should, furthermore, strengthen coordination
and coherence in the thinking and action on the financial
aspects of Education for All among international bodies,
such as G8, OECD, intergovernmental and regional development
banks, and the wider EFA movement.
(c)
Providing debt relief and/or cancellation for poverty
reduction and basic education
54.
Debt relief and/or debt reduction have been identified
as one of the potentially most important catalysts, particularly
in the HIPC countries, for poverty reduction and social
and educational development, and for bringing the internationally
agreed development targets within reach. It is, therefore,
essential to explore their full potential as a resource
base for EFA goals and targets. The use of debt relief
must form part of establishing coherence both across different
policy areas, such as development policy, foreign policy,
and international trade and investment policies within
and among countries in the North and the South, and between
nations and external agencies (Forster and Stokke, 1999).
The debt relief schemes are intended to free up national
resources that through pre-agreement between the creditor
and the debtor government, are converted into support,
for example, for Education for All. Debt-for-development-swaps
are another possible way for bilateral and multilateral
agencies, which are the main creditors in Africa, to support
EFA (Saravanamutto and Shaw, 1995). The swaps would also
imply that an amount of debt would be forgiven if a government
pledges to allocate the equivalent amount in local or
foreign currency for agreed activities, such as support
for Education for All. This is similar to the principles
of the 20:20 Initiative.
55.
The benefits of debt schemes must be urgently examined
if they are to form part of the financial basis for reaching
EFA. This is highlighted by the facts that between the
beginning of the debt schemes in the 1980s until 1996,
the debt stock in the HIPC countries increased by a factor
of four and 40% of bilateral aid to HIPC countries was
used to repay debt to multilateral creditors (IMF and
the World Bank). Furthermore, debt forgiveness has constituted
only 2% of the total net flow of financial resources from
DAC countries to developing countries during the 1990s.
Six of HIPC sub-Saharan countries spend more than one-third
of the national budget on debt servicing, while spending
4 to 11% on basic social services (Oxfam, 1999a, pp. 7,
11-12; OECD/DAC, 2000). The African region as a whole
spends more on paying debts than on health and education
combined. In 1999, African public debt was estimated at
$235 billion whereas annual debt service amounted on average
to $17 billion, the equivalent of 35% of education spending
for all African countries (ADEA, 2001). A successful HIPC
Initiative must translate into immediate generation of
new resources that are additional to, not diverted from,
ODA (Oxfam, 1999b).
56.
The Initiative was enhanced in June 1999 at the Cologne
summit of the G8. It is linked to strategic frameworks
for poverty reduction which would be prepared locally
by the government after extensive consultation with the
stakeholders concerned, including civil society and external
partners. The country will be offered debt relief subject
to conditions related to eligibility, democratic governance,
macro- economic stability and formulation and implementation
of a poverty strategy. The number of eligible countries
has increased to 37 of which 31 are in Africa, partly
because debt relief is now fixed at the Decision Point
rather than at the Completion Point. To date, 22 countries,
including 18 in Africa, have entered the HIPC process.
It is expected that the initiative will reduce the total
foreign debt stock for the 22 countries in question by
45%, from $44 billion to $24 billion while huge variations
will remain among the countries.
57.
Although lending agencies have recently eased some of
the conditions for access to the scheme - for example,
proof of good performance in an official lending programme
over several years - the precondition for countries to
join the scheme is the production of a complex poverty
strategy with plans for social development in interrelated
areas that details the roles of the government, the private
sector and civil society. The production of national poverty
strategies, therefore, in many cases depends on the provision
of technical assistance. In the context of EFA, it is
particularly important to link EFA action and other education
sector plans with poverty strategies and to clearly establish
how EFA and wider education development can contribute
to poverty reduction. This is, first, to ensure that some
of the resources made available by debt relief are actually
channelled into support for EFA and, second, to use them
in an efficient and equitable way in order to obtain tangible
systemic and societal improvements.
58. To reinforce the probability of successful
use of debt relief for achievement of EFA, the EFA movement
should provide the necessary supportive efforts to link
EFA action plans and poverty strategy papers at the country
level.
(d)
Facilitating more effective donor coordination
59.
Effective donor coordination is considered to be particularly
important to realize efficiency gains and heighten the
impact of international aid. It is also considered to
be an absolute precondition for holistic national development
processes. Its purpose is to ensure consistency in the
goals and strategies of all partners. It must be based
on coherence both within and across all sectors and sub-sectors,
and between nationally and internationally developed strategies
and plans.
60.
The nature and forms of coordination in the education
sector have varied in different contexts and over time.
It has included all or part of: consultation and exchange
of information; common understanding of policy and programme
objectives and priorities; policy and sector analysis
at the country level; cooperation in project and programme
design and execution; and cooperation in policy formulation
(Sack, 1995). All of these aspects are now expected to
form an integral whole in the kind of coordination effort
represented by sector-wide approaches (see (v) below)
and can be considered to be a prerequisite for a successful
EFA movement. Coordination is expected to take place both
among all funding and technical assistance agencies, and
between national governments, agencies, and non-governmental
and other civil society organizations at the country level.
Governments are expected to lead national coordination
efforts (King and Buchert, 1999).
61.
As indicated in the Dakar Framework for Action, the EFA
movement, facilitated and coordinated by UNESCO, must
build on existing coordination mechanisms at global, regional
and national levels. Coordination at the global level
is to facilitate coordination at the country level. At
the global level, UNESCO has become a member of the United
Nations Development Group in order to strengthen coordination
of EFA with other United Nations development initiatives.
Collaboration is being strengthened among the five core
EFA partners (UNESCO, UNICEF, UNDP, UNFPA and the World
Bank) in maintaining EFA high on the agenda both of the
respective organizations and internationally. Collaboration
is also being strengthened with other multinational organizations,
such as WHO and ILO, and with bilateral agencies individually
and collectively. Special efforts are being made to incorporate
non-governmental and other civil society organizations
as full partners of the EFA movement. The Working Group
on Education for All has been set up to provide a global
forum for professional dialogue among all EFA partners,
i.e. regions, countries, multinational and bilateral agencies,
and non-governmental and other civil society organizations.
In accordance with the Dakar Framework for Action, the
High-Level Group acts as a mechanism to maintain high-level
commitment and resource mobilization for EFA internationally.
62.
The established global coordination mechanisms tend, however,
to exist in isolation from other relevant international
forums and mechanisms. EFA must, for example, form part
of all high-level discussions of sustainable development
and poverty reduction. In particular, the global initiative
must be recognized as a global mechanism for coordinated
resource mobilization which should form part of ongoing
discussions on financing for development facilitated,
for example, by the World Bank and OECD. It is also of
absolute importance that the G8 Task Force,, set up after
the Genoa meeting in July 2001, works closely with the
EFA movement coordinated by UNESCO.
63.
According to the Dakar Framework for Action, countries
and regions are encouraged to establish national, subregional
and regional forums as mechanisms for interaction among
all EFA partners. In-country coordination is to be led
by governments with extensive participation of all stakeholders,
including civil society. In addition to the numerous forums
established at the national level, there are others at
the regional and subregional levels, for example the EFA
Forum for the Arab States, the Sub-regional Forum for
South Asia and the Central Asia Education Forum. In Africa,
national EFA coordinators have been appointed in 45 out
of 46 countries while wider coordination is undertaken
through existing networks, in particular the Association
for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) and
the Regional Conferences of Ministers of Education of
African Member States (MINEDAF). Existing mechanisms are
also being utilized in the Pacific. In Latin America and
the Caribbean, regional efforts have, so far, been limited
to the establishment of the Inter-Agency Regional Group
on EFA in Latin America and the Caribbean. In Europe,
there are considerations to set up a sub-regional forum
for the Baltic States. The E-9 Initiative represents a
coordinated South-South EFA effort among nine high population
countries.
64.
The national forums are particularly important as
mechanisms for the preparation of national EFA plans of
action by 2002 and for their longer term processes of
implementation and monitoring. Each forum should foster
partnership among all EFA actors and consensus focused
on the achievement of EFA goals and related information-sharing.
While Guidelines for the Development of National Action
Plans for Education for All (prepared by UNESCO) can form
the background for this work, national authorities must
take the lead in focusing attention to Education for All.
This may include the following actions: to make basic
education one of the top national priorities as reflected
in legislation and government budget; to promote a basic
education model in consideration of all six Dakar goals
and pertinent themes adapted to the needs and resources
of the country; to include representatives of both government
and civil society at all levels in the planning, implementation
and monitoring processes; to seek consensus with its international
development partners on processes and plans; and to develop
a strong communication policy in order to make the goals
and strategies known and to mobilize the support of civil
society for the reforms.
65.
In the context of linking the global initiative as
a financial resource mechanism with the formulation and
implementation of national plans, the EFA movement must
agree on a number of strategic steps, in particular appropriate
criteria and mechanisms for review of national EFA plans
(whether new or modified). Appropriate criteria would
include country needs and country commitment for the Education
for All process as expressed in effective national EFA
action plans and/or education sector plans, their inclusive
formulation process, and their harmonization with national
development strategies and with CCA/UNDAF and PRSP/CDF.
66.
Such criteria must be flexibly applied since many countries
may need technical assistance to produce EFA action plans
and PRSPs in the first place and since many also have
to await the formulation of the wider policy frameworks.
The relationship between the World Bank and the United
Nations-initiated policy frameworks must also be determined.
Thus, as of July 2000, of 59 least developed countries
in Africa, very few had the full set of policy frameworks,
while a larger number of countries had access to a part
of them.
As of October 2001, of 131 countries in all regions, 13
countries in Africa, 3 in the Arab region, 6 in Asia,
1 in Europe and 6 in Latin America had a completed CCA
and UNDAF. In some cases, countries with access to some
or all of the policy frameworks have undergone a dynamic
and mobilizing process of target-setting and creation
of plans of action for Education for All, for example
Gambia, Guinea, Madagascar, Mozambique, Uganda and the
United Republic of Tanzania. In others, little or no dynamics
have taken place and substantial improvement of the formulation
of national action plans is required. Some 20 to 30 countries
in Africa have education sector strategic plans.
67.
In terms of substance, what are called inter-agency flagship
programmes constitute encouraging examples of coordinated
work in some of the most critical thematic areas in Education
for All, for example girls' education, HIV/AIDS and education
in situations of emergency and crisis. These programmes
may constitute the way forward in other critical areas
as well as long as they are rooted in national plans,
form part of government-led development processes and
represent additional funding for achievement of EFA goals.
68.
In order to reinforce more effective donor coordination,
the EFA movement should map the different kinds of resource
needs at the country level as a basis for coordinated
EFA efforts by the different partners of the movement.
It should also highlight and disseminate good examples
of country-led, effective coordination.
(e) Strengthening sector-wide approaches
69.
At the country level, sector-wide approaches are currently
advocated by many international agencies and national
governments as the potentially most important way to achieve
coherence and effective use of international assistance
in support of national development efforts. The approaches
are specifically regarded as the best alternative, or
supplementary, mode to the kind of fragmented international
project support that characterized international development
cooperation in earlier decades.
70. The approaches must be understood as a process,
not as a blueprint, and must, therefore, be based on careful
analysis of specific country conditions. In addition to
analysis of the macro-economic and political environment,
this must include analysis of the readiness of the education
sector to absorb increased funding and implement sector-wide
as opposed to project-specific activities. Consideration
of the pace of home-grown versus induced change in innovation
and reform at the country level is essential. Since current
practices indicate many difficulties and uncertainties
in the design and implementation of sector-wide approaches,
lessons learnt and best practices need to be systematically
accumulated and applied.
71.
The sector-wide approaches are intended to support
government leadership and ownership through establishing
a working relationship based on partnership and policy
dialogue. All partners are expected to work within the
framework of government programmes which provides an opportunity
for national authorities and development partners to be
aligned with shared priorities. It also permits the agencies
to provide longer term support against well-defined policy
objectives and to support reforms through agreed operational
commitments and devolving greater authority to national
governments concerning resource decisions (Ratcliffe and
Macrae, 1999). The approaches are, therefore, a potentially
very critical means to negotiate appropriate emphasis
on Education for All in national development processes
and to strengthen understanding and collaboration between
Ministers of Finance and Ministers of Education.
72.
In contrast to the project approach, sector-wide approaches
often translate into an agreed framework for medium-term
financing and budgeting. International support is to be
provided as pooled funds channelled through national and
sectoral budgets for a common programme of work. This
is intended to achieve better correlation between budget
and performance targets for individual sectors and to
provide longer-term assurances of international support,
including for the recurrent budget. It must be matched
by corresponding transparency and accountability on behalf
of the national governments. All partners are also expected
to work according to a common set of procedures for procurement,
reporting, joint appraisals and evaluations. This would
reduce the transaction costs of aid and alleviate the
management burden of international aid on national governments
(Buchert and Epskamp, 2000; Forster et al., 2000). The
approaches can therefore assist in readjusting the traditional
funding division of labour between governments and agencies,
and in prioritizing Education for All within education
sector support.
73.
The successful use of sector-wide approaches rests on
a number of pre-conditions related to both country and
agency circumstances. At the country level, these include
the existence of a supportive national policy and institutional
environment characterized by longer term macro-economic
planning, government leadership, cross-sectoral understanding
and widespread involvement in planning, implementation
and monitoring processes, including by non-governmental
and other civil society organizations and by the private
sector. It is particularly important that the absorption
and implementation capacity of large-scale programmes
be in place. Agencies, on the other hand, need to cooperate
flexibly irrespective of national differences and interests
and to accept negotiations based on government leadership
and priorities. On both sides, the approaches have major
implications for institutional arrangements and staff
capacity to master process and other skills in addition
to narrower technical skills.
74.
Capacity and institution building both at the country
and the agency levels are, thus, essential for the successful
application of the approaches. This must rest on up-to-date
knowledge of the ongoing experiences in sector-wide approaches
in different country contexts and must involve targeted
training efforts of all involved partners. The preparation
and implementation of the approaches must be done in consideration
of reduced transaction costs for the governments.
75.
To strengthen the application of sector-wide approaches
in the move towards Education for All, the EFA movement
should set up a forum to monitor the experiences of sector-wide
approaches as a basis for their strengthened use in achieving
EFA goals and targets at the country level.
(f) Monitoring of progress towards EFA goals and targets
76.
Fulfilment of expressed commitments at Dakar would be
reflected in achievement of the stated goals for 2005
and 2015 by country, region and globally. The UNESCO Institute
for Statistics has been charged with the task of establishing
an objective, reliable system of evaluation and assessment
based on EFA baseline indicators and regular statistics
collection through its EFA Observatory. Its work is concentrated
in four major areas: data collection, development of new
methodologies, capacity-building in collection and use
of statistics, and data analysis and interpretation of
cross-national data. The statistical work is set in the
context of creating a culture of evidence-based policy-making
at the national level which necessitates the existence
of disaggregated data. The work of the Observatory is
complementary to that of other statistical institutes
and organizations, such as the World Bank and OECD. Judicious
use is made of relevant, existing data sets, models and
analyses.
77.
Success in this task can only be achieved if monitoring
forms an integral part of national and regional EFA plans
for action, is conducted at regular intervals at all levels
in order to allow for adjustments during the process,
and involves all stakeholders, in particular civil society.
Monitoring must be based on common output and outcomes
indicators which can facilitate the production of national
plans and be included in other activities which can act
as proxies for national plans, such as PRSPs and HIPC.
The 18 core EFA indicators should be used and modified
in light of the expanded Education for All concept. Particular
attention must be paid to developing indicators for measuring
the quality of education and other areas, for example
learning outcomes, out-of-school youth and HIV/AIDS. Common
indicators must be adapted to the particular circumstances
in individual countries.
78.
Monitoring of progress must rely on a collaborative
effort across countries, regions and institutions; it
must be cooperative through the sharing of expertise,
knowledge and experience; it must build capacity in the
countries; and it must enhance communication. Governments
and communities must be supported in the collection and
utilization of data. A mapping of country needs to fulfil
their monitoring task must be urgently undertaken related
to, for example, their capacity to undertake baseline
surveys in order to enhance the quality, accuracy and
validity of the data used to monitor progress, the appropriateness
of their education management and information systems,
and the existence of national capacities for evaluation
and monitoring.
79.
In the context of the global initiative, early agreement
must be reached on a set of indicators related to better
understanding and monitoring of international aid flows
and private sector contributions as well as costs of and
expenditures for education at the national levels. This
work relies on improvement of data on aid flows, for example
availability of disbursement rather than commitment figures,
better classification and interpretation of assistance
to basic education, and a clearer breakdown between support
for capital and recurrent expenditures. Furthermore, a
range of core education finance indicators must be improved,
for example expenditure by resource category and per student
expenditure.
80.
To strengthen monitoring of progress towards EFA goals
and targets, including establishing financial targets
at the national level, the EFA movement should produce
an annual EFA progress report based on inputs from regional
and national levels and from all development partners.
