Education aid is falling and failing to reach the right countries warns UNESCO

Education’s share of aid聽has been decreasing for years聽– and is not being targeted at the countries that need it most.

That means aid is falling well short of what is needed if every child around the world is to get into school, the United Nations revealed today.

国产视频淎id would need to be multiplied by at least six to achieve our common education goals and must go to countries most in need,”聽said Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO.

“Yet聽we see that donors to education are shifting their attention away from the poorest countries.”

That’s depressing news for the 263 million children and adolescents who are聽out of school globally. The Sustainable Development Goals agreed by world leaders include a target of getting every child a quality primary and secondary聽education by 2030.

However, the聽amount of aid allocated to education has been falling for six years in a row, according to a聽policy paper聽published by UNESCO国产视频檚 Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report.

While overall development aid increased by 24% from 2010 to 2015, the amount spent on education dropped聽by 4%. It is now less than the funding for transport.

Campaigners say the G20 summit in July will be crucial for the future of education funding.聽

The global Education Commission, a group of world leaders and experts, says spending on global education will have to almost treble for the 2030 target to be achieved.

Justin van Fleet, the commission’s聽director, said:聽国产视频淥ne of the things we国产视频檙e asking donor countries to think about doing is to prioritise education to the same level as health, to make education 15% of their overseas development assistance聽and to channel more of that money towards multilateral funds.国产视频�

The UNESCO paper reported that aid to education聽in聽2015 was $12 billion – with $5.2 billion going to basic education, which includes pre-primary and聽primary schooling.聽Aid to secondary education was聽$2.2 billion.

To compound the problem, the aid that聽is being allocated to education is not going to the right places – low-income countries with the highest out-of-school rates.

Sub-Saharan Africa is home to more than half of the world国产视频檚 out-of-school children – but聽gets less than half the aid to basic education it received in 2002.聽

It receives 26% of the聽total current聽aid to basic education –聽barely more than the 22% allocated to Northern Africa and Western Asia, where 9% of children are out聽of聽school.

There has been some success on increasing aid for education in emergencies, including conflicts and natural disasters.

Humanitarian aid to education has reached a historic high, increasing by 55% from 2015 to 2016. But it聽still receives only 2.7% of total aid – and less than half聽of the amount requested.

UNESCO said聽the聽Education Cannot Wait fund, launched last year, will help to transform the delivery of education in crises.聽The fund聽aims to raise $3.85 billion by 2020 and is already financing education in 10 emergency-affected聽countries.

The policy paper mentions two other major proposals for to聽reverse the fortunes of education funding.

A replenishment campaign by the Global Partnership for Education聽is seeking to raise $3.1 billion for 2018-20 and聽$2 billion annually by 2020. That is four times聽the current funding level.

UNESCO said: “In contrast to trends in bilateral aid to education, the GPE聽allocated 77% of its disbursements to sub-Saharan Africa聽and 60% to countries affected by instability and conflict.”

The other proposal is an聽International Finance Facility for Education聽(IFFEd), put forward聽 by the Education Commission, which says it聽could leverage around $10 billion in additional financing per year by 2020.聽

This would allow development banks to expand their education funding and target lower middle-income countries.