Aiding Development: Aiding Development: supporting educationsupporting education

UvA, Amsterdam22 October 2010

..  

... Netherlands spends more than three-quarters of its aid on education and healthcare .... Offering care to people may be noble, but does not lead in itself to self-sufficient countries or improve the prospects for future generations … even if it means more attention to the middle class economic growth and other activities that are less easily captured in mediagenic pictures.

Education for growth or education for poverty alleviation? Education for ‘development’ or

‘care’

◦It this a much needed policy choice and a corrective to current priorities as we approach 2015 or a false dichotomy that obscures rather than clarifies?

In this lecture I will first discuss the underlying assumption about ‘education as care’ – my thesis is that dichotomy between ‘care’ and ‘development’ is inaccurate and unhelpful

However, there a case that education has to answer and it is the failure to tackle issues of inequality which I then discuss

I will conclude by positing why the view of education as ‘care’ is becoming quite generalised in development thinking and suggest an alternative synthetic framework

THE REBUTTAL: THE CASE FOR EDUCATION AS A DEVELOPMENT PRIORITY

Education and rightsEducation and rightsEducation adds value and meaning to every

individual and should be provided without any form of discrimination or limitation

Rights don’t only matter when they contribute to growth and development – they are universal, public and simultaneously global and national goods

 UN Declaration on Human Right, UN General Assembly’s Declaration of the Rights of the Child in 1959, Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989

Realizing the right to education also enables people to access other human rights such as health, freedom and security.

We diminish our right rights by ignoring those of others

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

56 million

8 million

23 million

Rest of the World

South and West Asia39 million

Sub-Saharan Africa45 million

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

Out-of-school children (millions)

East Asia and the Pacific

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

32

18

9

63

72 million

1999

6

84

105 million

Out-of-school children

Arab States Latin America and the Caribbean

Numbers of out-of-school children are declining

East Asia and the PacificArab States Latin America and the Caribbean

From GMR 2010

Education reduces fertility Education reduces fertility levels …levels …

From I IASA Policy Brief 2008

Why investing in education makes Why investing in education makes economic sense economic sense

In Singapore, 95% of 8th grade students

score above the low benchmark

In Ghana, nearly 90% of 8th grade students score below

the low benchmark

From GMR 2010

Growth and performanceGrowth and performance

From Hanushek & Woessman 2009

Knowledge economies: who is left Knowledge economies: who is left behindbehind

Literacy and earnings in Literacy and earnings in CanadaCanada

fromhttp://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/81-004-x/2004006/7780-eng.htm#b, 14.10.10

Education and the ‘resource Education and the ‘resource frontier’frontier’The argument of the plundered earth by

Collier is that natural resources is the last opportunity for development and to be used effectively requires ‘investing in investing’ and that I take as requiring investing in education

It also requires as he argues transparency and active citizenship which again needs education

Without education, the last ‘resource frontier’ is not only likely to be ‘plundered’ but also ‘squandered’ – the case of oil in SSA in telling

EQUITY IS A EQUITY IS A DEVELOPMENT AS DEVELOPMENT AS MUCH AS A MORAL & MUCH AS A MORAL & POLITICAL GOODPOLITICAL GOOD

There are financial cost to not focusing on equity

There is a ‘talent pool’ argument – talent & potential is not restricted and limited to, inter alia, particular racial groups, genders, religious groups, classes

The economic costs of not The economic costs of not educating girls …educating girls …

From Plan (2008) Children in Focus Paper

From Plan (2008) Children in Focus Paper

Richest 20%

Poorest 20%

Poor, rural Hausa girls

Rich, rural girls

Poor, urban boys

Poor, rural girls

Nigeria

Rural Hausa

Rich, urban boys

Urban

Rural

Urban

Rural

Rich, rural boys

C. A. R.

Chad

Bangladesh

Cameroon

Honduras

IndonesiaBolivia

Cuba

Ukraine

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

Aver

age

num

ber o

f yea

rs o

f sch

oolin

g

Education poverty

Extreme education poverty

3.3 years

6.4 years

3.5 years

9.7 years

0.5 years

10.3 years

2.6 years

0.3 years

BoysGirls

6.7 years

10 years

The case of Nigeria

From GMR 2010

Sub-Saharan Africa, average

South and West Asia, average

Latin America and Caribbean, average

20

40

60

80

100

Grade 1 Grade 2 Grade 3 Grade 4 Grade 5 Grade 6 Grade 7 Grade 8 Grade 9

Su

rviv

al t

o g

rad

e (%

)

LAC, Richest 20%

SSA, Richest 20%

SWA, Richest 20%

LAC, Poorest 20%

SSA, Poorest 20%

SWA, Poorest 20%

Wealth & achievement

Children in the poorest 20% of households more likely to drop out that those in the richest 20%

OECD countries (Finland)

Grade attainment

From GMR 2008

OMISSIONS IN DISCOURSES OMISSIONS IN DISCOURSES OF EDUCATION AND OF EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENTDEVELOPMENT

The discourse of poverty in development terms was a corrective to

A narrow focus on tertiary An attempt to place a rights approach at the heart

of development To put the poor at the heart of the devlopment

process Incorporated but continued to reflect the

‘moral/charity’ discourse in development

Yet it was limited: poverty reduction and poverty alleviation became its defining leif motif

It fails to put at the heart of development a concern with inequality

It assumes a disconnect between poverty and inequality

Poverty and inequality are linked and in this lecture signal two interrelated process in development

Poverty is a much about structure as it is individual – the EFA goals and MDGs reduces concern for development to individual pathologies, deficits, endowment and efforts

Poverty is as much about understanding how elites form and (re)form and it is about the poor – poverty is relational requiring an analytic frame that gazes upwards as well as downwards

WHY HAS THIS COME WHY HAS THIS COME ABOUT – THE ABOUT – THE VICIOUS CYCLEVICIOUS CYCLE

Headlines in the UK local tabloids this morningIf we are so broke, why are we spending money overseas’

IS THERE A CASE TO IS THERE A CASE TO MADE AND WHAT IS MADE AND WHAT IS IT?IT?

Still a financing gap

Still far from realising a universal right

3.2 3.4 3.44.5 5.6

4.05.5

4.33.2

8.27.6 7.9

9.510.4

12.0

9.9

12.312.1

199920002001200220032004200520062007

Const

ant

2007

US

$ b

illio

ns

Total aid to basic education

Total aid to education

Disbursements are rising , but... Aid commitments to basic education fell by 22% in 2007, to US$4.3

billion

Commitments

Currently US$2.7 billion in aid to basic education for 46 low income countries

From GMR 2010

The EFA financing gap = 2% of bank rescue effort in the US and UK

Additional aid tobasic educationif Gleneaglescommitments are metIn 2010

Current aid to basiceducation

Aidshortfall

$ 11 billion

Estimated current resources$ 12 billion

Additionalresources fromprioritization

EFAfinancing

gap

$ 16 billion

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

$ 3 billion

$ 4 billion

Average annual resources needed to finance EFA (2009-2015)

US$ 36 billion

Additionalresources fromgrowth

$ 3 billion

$ 2 billion

From GMR 2010

The unfinished aid quality The unfinished aid quality agenda in educationagenda in education

Narrow base of donor supportUnder-prioritization of basic educationLimited support for conflict-affected

countriesNew ways of financing needed

From GMR 2010

THE DEVELOPMENT THE DEVELOPMENT TRIANGLE FOR TRIANGLE FOR EDUCATIONEDUCATION

StructuralElites

Basic need

Rights

SkillsCapacit

y