Education for All Canadas Contributions

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Education for All - Canadas Contributions

• Karen Mundy
• Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
• University of Toronto
• May 22, 2009

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Key questions

• How has Canada performed on Education for All?
• What might recent changes in policy direction
  mean for our future performance?
• What issues or avenue that need our attention?

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A story of success.

• Rapid growth of total Canadian aid to education
  (up x2 since 1999).
• About 15 of total disbursements from CIDAs
  bilateral and partnership programs
• Canadian aid to basic education more than triples
  over the past decade.
• Over 70 of total aid to education channeled to
  to basic education

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Growth of Canadian aid to basic education,
2002/3-2007/8
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Overall problem Donors are not delivering on
their Dakar commitments

• Donors falling short of 2010 commitments
• Aid to basic education reaches a plateau
• Aid to basic education in low income countries
  US3.8bn but US11bn needed annually to meet EFA
  goals
• Fast Track Initiative under threat US 2.2 bn
  financing gap

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CIDA Changing Directions and Policies

• Aid effectiveness agenda
• More bilateral, less multilateral
• More heavily concentrated in fewer countries
• More heavily concentrated in a smaller number of
  sectors (basic education big winner)
• Complete untying - including food aid but
  technical cooperation remains.
• Strategic agenda use aid to bolster other
  foreign policy goals (trade, security,
  reputational concerns leverage)
• Reorganization of Agency aimed at improving
  effectiveness and meeting new strategic agenda

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CIDAs New Countries of Focus

• Africa Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Mozambique,
  Tanzania, Senegal and Sudan.
• Americas Bolivia, Caribbean Region, Colombia,
  Haiti, Honduras, Peru.
• Asia Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia,
  Pakistan, Vietnam, and West Bank / Gaza.
• Other Ukraine

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New Thematic Foci

• Recently announced priorities
• Food security
• Child protection (especially focused on health)
• Sustainable economic growth
• Additional thematic directives
• Skills for employment (technical vocational
  education).
• Security sector reform
• Efforts to enhance governance, democracy support.

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Geographic allocation of aid

• Asia branch - doubles total aid since 2002, and
  exceeds disbursements to Africa for the first
  time in half decade.
• Africa branch - sees first dip in funding in
  2007/8.
• Education spending protected in Africa so far
  (21 of total disbursements).
• Rising in education programming in Asia.. More
  than double since 2005, 12 of total

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Supporting Education in Conflict Affected Contexts

• Growth of total aid and basic education aid to
  conflict affected states but highly
  concentrated on Afghanistan, Pakistan and Haiti
• Few bilateral programs focused on changing the
  content of schooling to include peace-building,
  citizenship etc.
• Humanitarian assistance - views education as an
  important part of child protection, but does not
  advocate for improving attention to education
• Diverse programming experiences at the country
  level
• Afghanistan - civil military cooperation,
  balancing harmonized and strategic approaches
• Colombia - using child rights as a lever for
  governance.

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Changes in Partnership

• Reorganization of Partnership Branch - sectoral
  organization with new human development
  directorate
• Anecdotal evidence that CIDA staff more directive
  about geographic and sectoral foci
• Total partnership disbursements slightly down
  (about 10 from their 2001 highs)
• Partnership to education also falls, from high
  of 19 to 14 in 2007/8
• CIDA experimenting with direct funding for
  southern CSOs

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What is the CGCE?

• Network of Canadian NGOs, teachers unions and
  research organizations committed to the
  achievement of education for all
• Established April 2005, 22 NGO members, Canadian
  Teachers Federation and 6 University Faculties of
  education
• Affiliated to the Global Campaign for Education,
  and network with coalitions in more than 70
  countries.

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How Have We Performed?

• Goals of the Canadian GCE
• To enhance Canadian commitment to the achievement
  of the universal right to education by raising
  public awareness, stimulating evidence-based
  dialogue, and demanding better funding and more
  effective approaches to this issue within our
  foreign policy agenda.
• To support forms of research and policy dialogue
  that can encourage a sustained role for
  democratic engagement and civil society
  participation in the governance of education in
  developing countries.
• To provide a forum for debate and information
  sharing among those Canadian civil society
  organizations committed to EFA goals.
• AND
• To develop synergies across the activities of
  Canadian organizations supporting EFA goals with
  the goal of pooling our resources and expertise
  to provide BETTER support for our southern
  counterparts
• To ensure that Canada plays a leadership role in
  developing a Global Compact for EFA

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Key issues

• How to keep education for all on governments
  agenda.
• Geographic allocations and no-growth of budget
  suggest threat to current education sector
  spending
• How to improve quality of Canadian interventions
• Movement towards bilateral, Canadian implemented
  projects.away from harmonization?
• More focus on quality (holistically defined) -
  research, learning?
• CSO aid effectiveness process -opportunities?
• Ongoing challenges to CSO funding
• Opportunities for policy dialogue
• G8 hosted by Canada in 2010.
• Global Fund?