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Meeting the EU's commitments to education

in developing countries:

Implications for the 2001 budget[1]

Recommendations

1.     Nine hundred million Euro, i.e. 10% of development spending in Category 4 and EDF spending should be allocated to basic education.[2]

2.     Commission staff capacity in Brussels and in delegations should be redeployed/increased to manage the additional spending.

3.     To ensure that these additional funds for education are used effectively, the Commission, in co-operation with the Member States, should take a lead in developing the mechanism to ensure that the ‘global initiative’ proposed in the Dakar Framework of Action becomes a reality with additional funds attached to it. This mechanism should include monitoring safeguards to verify that both southern and donor countries meet their education obligations.

4.     The European Parliament must carefully monitor Commission spending to ensure that it complies with Development Assistance Committee (of the OECD) reporting requirements.

5.     Commitments to Asia and Latin America should be restored to 2000 levels.

6.     The poverty focus of aid to Asia and Latin America and MEDA should be included in the remarks attached to these budgetlines. 

Introduction

At the World Education Forum in Dakar in April 2000, the 'international community', which includes the EU Member States and the Community, undertook to ensure that "no countries seriously committed to education for all will be thwarted in their achievement of this goal by a lack of resources." This commitment was subsequently reaffirmed at the five year review of the World Summit for Social Development in Geneva in June 2000. These meetings also reaffirmed international commitments to achieving universal access to primary education by 2015 and the elimination of gender disparity in education by 2005. The international community agreed to meet these commitments through a ‘global initiative aimed at developing the strategies and mobilising the resources needed to provide effective support to national efforts’. More explicitly, it was agreed at Dakar that the international community should consider increasing aid, making aid flows more predictable, improving donor co-ordination, speeding up debt relief and monitoring progress more regularly.

Education is a proven weapon in the fight against poverty. The EU's commitment to the fight against poverty generally in developing countries is contained in Article 177 of the Treaty of Amsterdam. It commits the EU to, inter alia,

"the campaign against poverty in the developing countries.. "

This commitment is amplified in a series of Council Resolutions including those on education and training in the developing countries (1994), gender and development (1995) and human and social development (1996)[3]. On education, the Council,

“emphasises that education, in particular basic education, is a fundamental right. It plays a crucial role in the affirmation of democratic values, economic growth and job creation, the reduction of disparities in income and of inequality and the improvement of standards of living and health.

The most important benefits come from primary education rather than higher education. Moreover, education can play an essential part in promoting the status of women in society.”

Furthermore, the Council's preliminary conclusions on the EC Development Co-operation Policy paper of May 2000 call for an increase in the poverty focus of the EC's development activities.[4]  The European Parliament in a Resolution adopted in April 2000 proposes that in order to give substance to this commitment to the campaign against poverty, "the budget for 2001 has to be at least doubled in the area of basic education[5];" Quantifying Commission spending in this area is notoriously difficult. However the Commission's recent Communication on EC development policy estimates that about 5.2% or Euro 450 million of EC aid is currently spent on aid to all education[6]. This implies that Commission support to education should be increased to 10% of total spending or Euro 900 million. Of this 10% at least 80% or Euro 720 million should be focused on support to basic education. Within EDF, Euro 150 million was allocated to education (largely primary) in 1999[7]. This should be increased to Euro 300 million in 2001.

Translating commitments into action

While the budget may be only one of the instruments at the EU’s disposal for achieving stated policy objectives, it would seem logical for it to take account of political commitments entered into by the EU.  Indeed, the Inter-Institutional Agreement on the budget specifically calls for an increase in spending to the developing countries. This year's budgetary guidelines (issued by the Parliament and which the Commission should respect) aim to increase the poverty focus of EC development aid by prioritising aid to Least Developed Countries (LDCs), and by concentrating resources on basic social services which have the biggest impact on people in poverty. In drawing up the PDB the Commission should have had these guidelines, political commitments to an increased poverty focus and undertakings on aid to education made in Dakar in mind.

Poverty focus

Yet it is evident that there is a mismatch between the commitment to fighting poverty and the proposed areas of activity and spending allocations. Three quarters of the world's poorest people live in South Asia yet the region as a whole is allocated only Euro 425 million in commitment appropriations (provisional figures) in the Preliminary Draft Budget (PDB) or around 8% of the total expenditure available under category 4 (not including EDF). Can the EU really be said to have a poverty focused development policy when funds are not allocated to the poorest regions and cuts in commitment appropriations to Asia and Latin America are proposed? Whilst Eurostep welcomes increased payment appropriations to Asia and Latin America in 2001, these cannot compensate for cuts in commitments. Better to address the causes of the underspend rather than propose simply to spend less. The poor of Asia and Latin America should not be penalised for EU inefficiency and the resulting backlog. Commitments to Asia and Latin America should be restored to at least 2000 levels i.e. Euro 446,284,000 and Euro 335,914,000 respectively and clearly targeted on poverty eradication. Remarks must be attached to the budget lines for these regions that clarify that the purpose of development aid is poverty eradication.

Aid to education

This budget contains no indication that the Commission has taken account of the international community’s recent commitment to ensure that no country with a viable national education action plan should be denied the necessary funds to implement it. With a mere 5.2% of spending allocated to all education, developing countries must be wondering how the community aid programme will find the funds to helps support their education plans. The budget for aid to education and to basic education in particular should be doubled in 2001 ensuring expenditure of at least Euro 900 million.  

Increased transparency

The annex that the Commission has provided to accompany the 2001 PDB is a very welcome effort to increase spending transparency.

·        Eurostep supports the Parliament's decision to include the annex in the budget proper since it gives it the visibility and legal status it would otherwise lack.

·        The inclusion of the EDF in the annex to the budget is also a positive development because it will permit the wider application of Activity Based Budgeting (ABB), in particular to LDCs (mostly ACP countries) and because it enables the EU to demonstrate very clearly how development spending is allocated. The 2000-1 balance under the EDF column shows that 35% is allocated to 'economic infrastructure' against only 15% to all the social sectors. Unless the Commission can show the direct impact on people in poverty of its support for such projects and can demonstrate that commercial and soft loans are not available, then Eurostep questions the wisdom of allocating EDF funds in such a way.

·        Eurostep also recommends that sectors identified be further disaggregated so that it is possible to see for example whether funds are allocated to support for basic social services, where their poverty impact will be greatest, or not.

·        Finally, the commitment and payment appropriations for EDF 9 identified in the 2001 budget should reflect the fact that the funds will cover an eight year period only.

Output targets

Eurostep supports the inclusion of output targets in the annex since otherwise, the EU's progress towards the goals it has committed itself to cannot be measured. The EU's ability and willingness to live up to its political commitments will be judged by whether it is willing to accept the output targets proposed by the European Parliament's Development Committee. These are designed to ensure that the poverty focus of EC aid is quantitatively improved and will ensure the desired level of transparency and accountability. At the same time, the Commission must ensure that it allocates resources within the education sector clearly so that it can meet the reporting requirements of the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD. Output targets and transparent resource allocation are essential both to allow the budgetary authorities to articulate the EU's spending priorities through the budget and to ensure that these priorities are observed in a measurable way.

The adoption of output targets will also ensure greater transparency for and accountability to Southern governments and people. Eurostep understands the targets as expressions of political intent and calls for a political debate to take place with all development actors that addresses the principle of ownership of development. However, Eurostep draws attention to the global consensus achieved on the International Development Targets on education which were agreed in Copenhagen in 1995 and reaffirmed in Geneva in 2000. At the same time, it is important to recognise that the targets need to be applied in a way that responds to needs that have been established at a national level. Targets need therefore to be adaptable to national circumstances.

Spending in the Balkans

The 2001 budget attempts to meet important demands arising from the need for reconstruction in the Balkans through the existing expenditure ceilings. This is unfortunate since it creates the impression that the needs of one group of people are being pitted against the needs of another. Eurostep acknowledges the importance of Balkans reconstruction and proposes that increases should be spread over the period of the whole financial perspective and should be on the basis of pragmatic, costed proposals.

Conclusions

The European Union needs to visibly demonstrate its commitment to education for all. Eurostep believes that in the first instance this requires:

Ø      Nine hundred million Euro, i.e. 10% of development spending in Category 4 and EDF spending should be allocated to basic education.[8]

Ø      Commission staff capacity in Brussels and in delegations should be redeployed/increased to manage the additional spending.

Ø      To ensure that these additional funds for education are used effectively, the Commission, in co-operation with the Member States, should take a lead in developing the mechanism to ensure that the ‘global initiative’ proposed in the Dakar Framework of Action becomes a reality with additional funds attached to it. This mechanism should include monitoring safeguards to verify that both southern and donor countries meet their education obligations.

Ø      The European Parliament must carefully monitor Commission spending to ensure that it complies with Development Assistance Committee (of the OECD) reporting requirements.

Ø      Commitments to Asia and Latin America should be restored to 2000 levels.

Ø      The poverty focus of aid to Asia and Latin America and MEDA should be included in the remarks attached to these budgetlines. 

August 2000

[1] This paper does not address all the areas of concern to development NGOs in respect of the 2001 budget. For a complete analysis of the 2001 budget from the development NGO perspective refer to the joint paper prepared by the development NGO networks which was distributed in June 2000 available from [email protected]. This paper is limited specifically to implementing the EU's political commitments on aid to education.

[2] Extra aid for education should come from the current high allocation to infrastructure. Large scale infrastructure projects are less likely to have a direct impact on the poor and are more likely to attract private financing and loans than is support to basic social services. It therefore makes poor development and economic sense to allocate a relatively large pool of EDF resources to infrastructure projects.

[3] Council Resolution on education and training in the developing countries, of 25 November 1994 in Collection Vol. 1 05/92 – 05/95 “RUN-UP TO 2000”, Council resolution on integrating gender issues in development cooperation, European Union, 1995, Council resolution on Human and Social Development of 22 November 1996 in Collection Vol. 2 06/95 – 11/97

[4] See minutes of Development Council meeting 18 May 2000 on Europa website

[5] Minutes of 13/04/00 based on Document No. B5-0355/00 - provisional edition

[6] Com (2000) 212/final p.38

[7] Allocation Sectorielle de l'aide de la Communauté Européenne au titre du Budget et du FED p.7

[8] Extra aid for education should come from the current high allocation to infrastructure. Large scale infrastructure projects are less likely to have a direct impact on the poor and are more likely to attract private financing and loans than is support to basic social services. It therefore makes poor development and economic sense to allocate a relatively large pool of EDF resources to infrastructure projects.

Updated on 24 August 2000
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