Promoting international commitment and action
Well-targeted country programmes
Knowledge and research strategies
Ways of working
5.1 DFID is committed to the achievement of UPE and gender equality as priorities for development. This means making a strong contribution to the international effort to achieve the targets. This commitment is set out within DFID’s overarching goal, articulated in 1997 in the UK’s White Paper on International Development: Eliminating World Poverty: A Challenge for the 21st Century. There are many other international agencies, institutions and organisations similarly committed.
5.2 The scale of the UPE challenge is such that DFID’s contribution must be carefully defined to maximise the use of available resources - financial and human. The threefold strategy, outlined below, is underpinned by the analysis in the preceding chapter, Meeting the challenge. It comprises three priorities for action:
1. Contributing to the development and co-ordination of international commitment, policies and programmes designed to achieve Education for All.5.3 This approach will enable DFID to build on a number of strengths: it will exploit DFID’s decentralised system of technical expertise, continue to promote a multidisciplinary approach to economic and social development, and place education sector work within wider economic and social frameworks. Collectively, this strategy will allow DFID to strengthen dialogue with governments, key international agencies and the organs of civil society, drawing on supportive relationships with UK government departments and other institutions with appropriate expertise and influence.2. Strong, well targeted country programmes - with priority to sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia -which will provide strategic assistance to governments and civil societies committed to UPE and gender equality, within sound education sector, poverty and development frameworks.
3. Knowledge and research strategies and outcomes that will contribute to the ability of the international community, including partner countries, to learn lessons, share experience and monitor progress.
5.4 DFID intends to work to help shape and influence international institutions and organisations that have the potential to help realise UPE, promoting and creating consensus on achieving the International Development Targets. DFID will work to improve the technical co-ordination of development assistance for education, especially through sector-wide approaches, in the following ways:
· being proactive in trying to achieve the commitments of the Dakar Framework for Action, including the pledge that no country committed to Education for All should be thwarted for lack of resources. It will play its part in UNESCO-led Education for All mechanisms where these are designed to add value to national efforts and improve agency co-ordination. It will help to build critical international capacity in educational statistics, particularly through the UNESCO Institute of Statistics.· strengthening partnerships for policy dialogue and joint activities with the World Bank, UNICEF, UNESCO, the European Commission, bilateral agencies and international civil society organisations. With the World Bank and the IMF the focus will be on the design of structural reform and sector policy goals, including the priority accorded education in the Comprehensive Development Framework. DFID will contribute to the design of debt relief agreements that will enable governments to protect and enhance spending on basic education within national Poverty Reduction Plans.
· working with the European Commission to improve the focus and effectiveness of its assistance to education. It will support Commonwealth activities which facilitate the sharing of experience, and help to strengthen regional programmes and networks where these have the potential to influence policy, share comparative experience and build alliances. The Association for the Development of Education in Africa and Forum for African Women Educationalists are significant examples of influential networks in Africa.
· developing a better understanding of how a ‘rights-based’ approach to UPE can be effective, including the monitoring of Article 28 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
· promoting DFID’s Action Plan for Promoting Core Labour Standards which gives priority to the elimination of the worst forms of child labour and forced or compulsory labour. DFID will encompass child labour in its support for education sector programmes and will continue to assist NGOs in both advocacy and specialist programmes for ‘hard to reach’ working children.
· supporting cross-cutting initiatives, including the education of girls, education and conflict resolution, the impact of HIV/AIDS on education, building national publishing capacity, and realising the potential of distance education.
· exploiting the potential for utilising Information and Communications Technology, including through the Prime Minister’s initiative designed to build private-public partnerships to apply new technologies for education.
5.5 DFID’s financial commitment to education is continuing to grow. £400 million has been committed to education since 1997, almost all to basic education. This is indicative of an expanding pipeline of programmes, increasingly in support of sector policies agreed with national governments and co-ordinated with other funding agencies. Many countries are in the process of agreeing and implementing long-term, broad-based strategies to eradicate poverty, which include strategies for the development of the education sector. In the future, DFID’s support for education in such countries will consist of longer-term, flexible funding, channelled through governments’ own budgetary systems.
5.6 In its dialogue with governments DFID will be guided primarily but not exclusively by the need to expand and improve the quality of primary education and the need to monitor and promote gender equality both in terms of enrolment and completion. The impact of HIV/AIDS on education systems, and education as a means of combating the spread of the pandemic will gain increasing attention. In order to work effectively in these realms, DFID will play a strong role in generating and sharing knowledge.
5.7 Section 2 of this paper summarised the scale and geography of the UPE challenge. Sub-Saharan Africa presents the greatest challenge. DFID works in Africa, primarily but not exclusively, with countries with which the UK has had long educational links and partnerships. But work in Mozambique and Rwanda is indicative of a willingness to respond to the needs of countries emerging from conflict and faced with major challenges in achieving the education targets. DFID has substantive programmes not only where there is the potential to have a significant impact on national indicators, but also where there is the opportunity to support a comprehensive approach to education and development which addresses issues of poverty, gender discrimination and social exclusion, as in Uganda. But clearly DFID is only a part of the international development system. Our contribution to international development agencies will seek to ensure that support for UPE is available to all countries.
5.8 South Asia is the other major sub-region where the challenge of UPE, and gender equality in particular, deserves continued DFID support in partnership with national and state governments. DFID has been involved significantly in assisting the development of primary education in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. The place of adult literacy in reducing poverty and promoting primary education will receive growing support.
5.9 These regional priorities will not exclude engagement with other countries where support from DFID for achieving and sustaining UPE can make a significant contribution. Where universal enrolment into primary education has been very largely achieved, as in the Caribbean, the South Pacific and parts of South and East Asia, but where the quality of primary education or expansion into secondary education is important for the reduction of poverty, these issues should be the focus for assistance.
5.10 In those countries where a strong bilateral programme does not exist, DFID will work to encourage a sector-wide approach. This will involve strengthening education management systems as well as engaging in policy debate which addresses the key issues surrounding quality and access for primary education, literacy and skills development. Where conflict rules out direct DFID assistance, emphasis will be on developing a political solution without which reconstruction cannot take place. Countries emerging from conflict have special needs. If assistance is agreed, education opportunities for peace building will be considered.
5.11 Where there is no significant DFID country programme in countries of high demonstrated need (for example in the Sahel), it will be more appropriate to share knowledge and contribute to the design and funding of programmes undertaken by other bilateral development partners, or by the multilateral institutions to which DFID contributes, for example the World Bank, the EC and the UN agencies.
5.12 DFID will develop its knowledge and research strategies in order to contribute to the achievement of the targets. Better opportunities for sharing programme outcomes will be created and the needs of different audiences, especially practitioners in developing countries will be addressed. While the Internet provides a powerful tool for this, DFID will also be proactive in seeking greater working cohesion with other agencies through more frequent dialogue, secondments and joint knowledge programmes.
5.13 DFID will develop an education knowledge and research programme which gives priority to understanding the ways and means of attaining and sustaining UPE and gender equality. It will give increasing attention to the relationship between education and globalisation: the demands which globalisation places on education systems and the benefits which can be gained from the processes of international knowledge sharing through information technology.
5.14 A primary purpose of DFID-supported research will be to contribute to the thinking and practice of those charged with defining national policies and plans. Therefore, an important research criterion will be the development of national, in-country, research capacity.
5.15 The threefold strategy, outlined above, has important implications for DFID’s ways of working for education.
5.16 Effective country programmes require in-house skills to undertake good sector-wide analysis. This includes the ability to engage in policy analysis on issues of access, quality and equity, education financing and change management, and a wide appreciation of the social and economic environment of children who are excluded or who fail to complete primary school. It needs an enhanced understanding of how education is affected by gender and the options which are available to promote gender equality. It necessitates an ability to mainstream education issues across sectors in support of the other International Development Targets in income poverty, health, the environment and governance. The skills profile demanded by this agenda is different to that required for project design and management and has implications for programme organisation and management, and for the design of professional development programmes.
5.17 Sector-wide working also requires the ability to work to different agendas than just that of DFID, to adapt and absorb differing views on education priorities, and to negotiate with governments and the international community. DFID’s traditional timescales, developed for projects, will change. In addition, acceptance of the difficulties of earmarking or tracking individual financing contributions to the sector will have to be acknowledged.
5.18 The wider international agenda requires a strong professional input into the work of key agencies and institutions, especially the World Bank, the EC and the UN system. It needs multidisciplinary linkages within DFID across advisory, international and regional departments. It necessitates core sector capacity able to follow and influence international initiatives and systems and to be proactive in support of joint programmes.
5.19 Within the UK, greater attention will be given to creating public awareness of education as a basic human right for all children and of the importance of realising the education targets through support for Development Education.
5.20 DFID will work closely with other government departments to contribute to other international agendas (including debt, human rights and child labour), and will draw on the experience and the strengths in UK education, particularly through the Department for Education and Employment. The diverse capacities of UK academic institutions will be engaged as will the major international NGOs with an interest in poverty elimination and education.
