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A
TIME FOR ACTION:
Placing Education at the Core of Development |
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James D.
Wolfensohn
President, The World Bank |
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Presentation
at the World Education Forum, Dakar, Senegal
Dakar, 27 April 2000 |
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No country has succeeded without educating its people; education
is key to sustaining growth and reducing poverty. |
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Everywhere I go I see the power of education to improve people's
lives. We have ample evidence to demonstrate that broad-based
education is associated with a wide range of indicators of well
being, including a nation's increased productivity and competitiveness
as well as social and political progress. South Korea, Malaysia,
Mexico among others have taught us this. Most important, education
is a basic human right that frees the spirit from the chains
of ignorance. |
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The World Bank is firmly committed to achieving the goal of
Education for All. |
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The Bank has fulfilled its EFA commitments made in Jomtien in
1990, and subsequently in Beijing in 1995. We have doubled our
lending for education from $918.7 million to an average of $1.9
billion a year. We have increased the percentage of our lending
devoted to basic education, from 27 to 44 percent. We have set
up a program to target 31 countries (with populations over 4
million) where the gender gap is greatest, and have increased
lending for girls' education to an average of $860 million per
year. Our support combined with that of other agencies and governments
themselves has helped produce significant progress in raising
the number of children in school (especially girls) in many
countries. The total number of children in primary school increased
from around 600 million to about 700 million. In many countries,
there are now comprehensive education policies and programs
in place. Strong partnerships in education have been established.
ADEA, the Association for the Development of Education in Africa,
is a good example of such partnership. |
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We have come a long way on EFA, but we still have a long way
to go. |
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Too many people are still excluded from education because of
poverty, poor policies and corruption. 125 million children
are still out of school, and nearly 1 billion are illiterate
- the majority girls and women. Education attainment in perhaps
half the sub-Saharan countries, and several of the South Asian
countries, is well below the level required historically to
achieve sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction. |
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Why has progress been so slow? |
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We underestimated how difficult and expensive the process of
achieving EFA is, how long it takes to bring about change..
And then we had a series of unexpected challenges that arose
during the '90s - economic crises, political and economic transitions,
the devastation of HIV/AIDS, the widening of the digital divide,
civil conflicts and natural disasters. In addition, rapid population
growth made the achievement of the EFA goals more difficult.
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Yet the EFA goals are attainable. |
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Over the last 10 years since the Jomtien conference there have
been some real successes. Some examples of where progress has
been made are the Fundescola programs in Brazil, the Education
Enhancement programs in Egypt, the Universal Primary Education
program in Uganda, the expenditure reform program in Mauritania,
and the District Primary Education Program in India. |
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We've learned some key lessons about what is required to achieve
EFA. |
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Strong political commitment is the cornerstone of success, to
promote efficient resource utilization, sustained support for
difficult and sometimes contentious policies, and build the
necessary institutional capacity. Education policy is most effective
when it is developed in the context of a comprehensive sector
policy framework. We must pay attention to core education finance
issues to ensure that available resources are being used efficiently.
Safety nets allowing kids to stay in school are important during
crises. And perhaps most important, we have learned that quality
is as important as quantity - simple access is not enough. We
must have in place in the essential basics: dedicated and well-trained
teachers, support for their salaries and teaching resources,
and an overall environment conducive to learning. And we now
have unprecedented opportunities to harness information technology
for teacher training and increased access and quality. |
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| SO HOW
DO WE MOVE FORWARD? |
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I see the following areas for immediate action: |
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First, we must place education squarely at the core of the global
and national development agenda. |
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Education must be higher on the agenda of everyone: governments,
donor agencies, NGOs, trade unions, the private sector, foundation.
Achieving quality education for all can no longer be the responsibility
of Ministries of Education alone. I raised this issue in my
note to the finance and development ministers at the recent
spring meetings of our Development Committee in Washington.
Next time we meet to review our progress on EFA, Ministers of
Finance should also be here along with more Heads of State.
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No country with a viable and sustainable plan for achieving
Education for All will be unable to implement it for lack of
external resources. |
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This is similar to the pledge I just made at our Spring Meetings
in Washington on support for combatting HIV/AIDS. This is a
huge challenge and will require effort from all of us. Whether
money, people or know how, we will work with our partners to
make it happen. |
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Country ownership and leadership is key to moving forward. |
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This is a core concept of the Comprehensive Development Framework.
It is also the underpinning of the Poverty Reduction Strategy
Papers, which were adopted by the Boards of Governors of the
World Bank and IMF in September as the basis for our future
lending first to the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs)
and eventually to all our client countries. As you know, the
HIPC Initiative aims at eliminating unsustainable debt in the
world's poorest and most heavily indebted countries, and redirecting
resources into the social sectors. Through the HIPC Initiative
and the PRSPs we pledge to work with renewed vigor with governments
and other donors to reach the EFA goals by integrating actions
and outcomes across sectors and with macroeconomic policies,
to ensure coordinated, coherent strategies. |
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Second, we need to provide fresh leadership for the way forward
with a very different set of alliances. |
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The Bank, together with our UN agency partners, and bilateral
development sponsors, have led the EFA process over the past
10 years and have contributed substantially to the ongoing activities.
While this partnership is significant and important, it has
not been sufficient to get us where we need to go. Success is
hard won, achieved country by country, and requires the participation
of other actors as well - governments, yes, but also civil society
and the private sector. After Dakar, the EFA movement must move
forward at the country, regional and global level. It must be
broader, more inclusive, more innovative and more flexible than
in the past. |
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Third, we must intensify our efforts by leveraging stronger
partnerships on key interventions that we know make a difference.
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Improving girls' educational opportunities: As the Secretary
General said yesterday, we too are committed to working with
our UN partners to make notable progress in reducing gender
disparities by 2005, and in 31 target countries. |
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addressing the scourge of HIV/AIDS: As we've seen in Uganda
and Thailand, education makes an enormous difference in stopping
the spread of this disease which is having such a deadly impact
on social and economic well-being of millions. With our partners
in UNAIDS, we have greatly expanded our support to combat HIV/AIDS
especially in Africa. This was a topic for discussion at the
Spring Meetings. The new partnership with WHO and UNICEF on
FRESH (Focusing Resources on Effective School Health), which
is being launched here in Dakar, will make HIV/AIDS an essential
part of education programs - the President of Senegal and I
will be signing a project to create the first of many such initiatives
tomorrow. |
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bridging the digital divide: With programs such as WorLD Links
for Development we are working with the private sector and NGOs
to link more than 400 schools and 40,000 teachers and students
in developing countries to their peers in industrialized ones.
We also have in place the African Virtual University and the
Global Distance Learning Network. The Global Development Gateway
is our next venture at a truly global and innovative multi-sectoral
partnership. |
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Here I also want to pay special tribute to the efforts of the
NGOs involved in the Global Campaign for Education. They have
played an important advocacy role. We fundamentally agree with
their call that by the year 2015 free education be a right for
all children up to age 15. |
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Of course we recognize that in order to help poor countries
reach this goal in a sustainable way, we may have to be open
in the interim to innovative ways of funding education, including
community-based approaches. Clearly we have to work with governments
to ensure that the poorest are not further disadvantaged in
the process. |
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Finally, we need to put into place a fast-track action plan
for countries that are committed to achieving EFA goals sooner
than the 2015 timeline. |
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Under such a demand-driven process, we are saying that we as
donors must be ready to respond more quickly and help countries
when they are ready to move. The first group of countries in
this fast-track process can forge the path for others by laying
out details on how to reach EFA, removing barriers, establishing
working partnerships and setting milestones for progress. |
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This a plan on which we can all converge, and which should be
adopted in the Forum's Framework for Action. |
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If we can agree on this - and I sincerely hope we can -- then
we must work together to develop a concrete plan for accelerating
action during the next three months. |
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We need a truly global plan of action. This is a first step,
but an essential one - to support those governments who are
committed to achieving EFA goals. The time for action is
now. |
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