United Nations Millennium United Nations Millennium Project Task Force on Education Project Task Force on Education

and Gender Equalityand Gender Equality

Interim Report on Achieving the Millennium

Development Goal of Universal Primary Education

Millennium Development GoalsMillennium Development Goals

Goal 1 Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

Goal 2 Goal 2 Achieve universal primary education Achieve universal primary education Goal 3 Goal 3 Promote gender equality and Promote gender equality and

empower empower women women Goal 4 Reduce child mortality Goal 5 Improve maternal health Goal 6 Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other

diseases Goal 7 Ensure environmental sustainability Goal 8 Develop a global partnership for

development

Millennium Development Goals Millennium Development Goals Overall UN StrategyOverall UN Strategy

Millennium Campaign: Mobilizing political support for the MDGs through locally-led national campaigns.

Millennium Project: Setting targets, recommending strategies anddeveloping an implementation plan that will allow all developing countriesto meet the MDGs by 2015. Commissioned by Secretary General Kofi Annan, 10 independent Task

Forces were convened to generate recommendations to achieve the MDGs. Led by Jeffrey Sachs, Director of The Earth Institute, Columbia University.

MDG Country Reporting: Evaluating countries’ progress toward theMDGs through periodic national reports.

Country Operations: Coordinating UN agencies’ activities to helpcountries implement policies to achieve the MDGs.

Task Force onTask Force onEducation and Gender EqualityEducation and Gender Equality

Goals: Achieve universal primary education by 2015

Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling.

Promote gender equality and empower women Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education,

preferably by 2005, and to all levels of education no later than 2015.

Coordinators: Nancy Birdsall, President, Center for Global Development Geeta Rao Gupta, President, International Center for Research

on Women Amina Ibrahim, Education for All Coordinator, Ministry of

Education, Nigeria.

Task Force 3 on Education and Gender Task Force 3 on Education and Gender EqualityEquality

MembersMembers

Charles AbaniCarmen BarrosoNancy BirdsallMayra BuvinicWinnie ByanimaJennifer ChiwelaChristopher ColcloughDiane ElsonTamara FoxGeeta Rao GuptaCarolyn HannanNoeleen HeyzerAmina IbrahimRuth KagiaMichael Kremer

Lin Lean LimNora LustigKaren MasonArlene MitchellPenina MlamaMary Joy PigozziMagaly PinedaAnastasia PosadskayaPaulo Renato SouzaGita SenFatou SowGorgui SowGene SperlingAlbert TuijnmanCream Wright

Task Force 3 on Education and Gender Task Force 3 on Education and Gender EqualityEquality PerspectivePerspective

Making current systems bigger will not be enough

Transformational actions are needed to Make sure schooling --> education Address gender inequality in education Educate vulnerable and marginalized children

Task Force MessagesTask Force Messages

1- Mothers Matter Most

2- A Little Education Isn’t Enough

3- Parents, and Other Citizens, Have the Right to Know

4- More Money, Better Spent 

5- Focus on the Hardest-to-Reach

6- Think Holistically

Message One: Mothers Matter MostMothers Matter Most Sustained progress toward universal primary education

requiresactions to improve the status of girls and women.

Educated mothers have more resources and use them to send children to school.

Women are 20 times more likely (than men) to spend money on the health and education of their children.

Mothers who are more educated tend to have children who perform better in school, and remain in school longer.

In Latin America, a 15-year-old child whose mother has some secondary schooling will remain in school for 2 to 3 more years than a child of a mother with less than 4 years of education.

Message Two: A Little Education Isn’t Enough A Little Education Isn’t Enough The benefits of education endure only after a critical level of

schooling has been attained.

Up to 9 years (basic education) provides the level ofeducation required to generate individual, family and society-wide benefits.

Completion of at least 5 to 6 years is needed for mastery of basic competencies.

Higher levels of education generate key health and economic benefits particularly in more gender-stratified and unequal societies.

Post-primary education of girls is critical for lowering fertility and mortality, and improving reproductive health outcomes (including AIDS prevention).

The world faces the largest-ever cohort of adolescents.

Dead-end schooling dampens demand at the earliest grades.

Message Three: Parents, and Other Citizens, Parents, and Other Citizens, Have the Right to Know Have the Right to Know

Improving local, national and international accountability through better information generation and sharing is fundamental to

better education.

Local:Core set of information about school resources and performance topermit parents to hold schools and government accountable.

National:Planning data on school supply and performance; household

demand;and labor market.

International:Trends in the education sector; policies, resources and

performance;and assessment of development aid effectiveness.

Message Four: More Money, Better Spent More Money, Better Spent Significant additional resources are critical, but not sufficient, to

reach universal basic education.

Between $7 billion and $15 billion per year are required to put everychild in a good primary school.

Recurrent costs, rather than capital investments, represent the bulk of required funds. About 55% of the external gap is for recurrent costs and only 45% for capital investments.

External financing requirements for poor countries are likely to be somewhere between $2-6 billion per year.

More spending doesn’t always lead to better performance. Additional funding alone will not rescue failing systems from poor

governance and management. A review of 15 cross-country analyses show no consistent relationships

between resources and performance.

More spending doesn’t always lead to better performance.Management, effective resource allocation, demand-side factors are critical parts of the equation.

Message Five: Focus on the Hardest-to-Reach Focus on the Hardest-to-Reach Reaching out-of-school children will take special efforts,

beyond what is typically thought of as “scaling up.”

Specific interventions are needed to make schoolsaccessible and secure for this population:

Elimination of school fees

Conditional cash transfer programs

School feeding programs

School health programs

Sensitizing schools to girls’ needs

Message Six: Think HolisticallyThink HolisticallyFor education to reach its potential to contribute to economic growth, it needs to be accompanied by sound, broad-based

economic reform.

Education will lead to economic growth and women’sempowerment only if the economic context is favorable.

Job opportunities for skilled workers

Investments need to be complemented by policies toimprove:

Governance

Investment climate

Labor market incentives

Recommendation 1: Funding by donors, Funding by donors, connected to action by governmentsconnected to action by governments

Donors should commit to a dedicated facility with a starting balance of at least $1 billion.

To be drawn down and replenished to fund education sector plans under the Fast Track Initiative.

Recommendation 2: Expanded funding for Expanded funding for post-primary educationpost-primary education

The Fund should cover basic education incountries that qualify, to keep adolescents

inschool and increase the likelihood that

parents and children will be motivated to completeprimary school.

Recommendation 3: Strong monitoring Strong monitoring of progress in implementing changes and of progress in implementing changes and improving education system performanceimproving education system performance

Assist recipient countries to implement systems that provide relevant information about education spending and outcomes. Focus on parents’ information needs.

Expand indicators of education system performance, and strengthen the capacity of statistical agencies within developing countries to collect and analyze data of adequate quality for decision making (UNESCO’s UIS).

Recommendation 4: Strong monitoring of Strong monitoring of donor funding and practicesdonor funding and practices

Donors should commit to a common framework

of transparent annual monitoring and reporting

on commitments, disbursements andharmonization.

This can be done through the FTI, in the case of countries included in the initiative, and through the OECD’s DAC more broadly.

In addition to annual FTI funding, donors should providefunding for cash or other transfers to poor householdscontingent on children's attendance at school.

These programs ideally would be developed and managed by governments, but where that is not possible, could be developed and managed by donors as long as governments agreed.

Other interventions that should be eligible for funding: School feeding programs, particularly where under-nutrition and

food security issues are prevalent. Girls’ scholarship programs, particularly where discrimination

against girls predominates, and/or the opportunity cost of girls’ participation in post-primary education is a significant demand-side constraint.

Recommendation 5: Support for Support for innovative, demand-side innovative, demand-side

interventionsinterventions

Recommendation 6: Genuine evaluation Genuine evaluation to learn what worksto learn what works

A minimum of 5% of resources for basic educationshould be applied to evaluation programs that usesound methodologies, and guarantee dissemination of findings. Create an independent facility for funding and bringing

visibility to the results of rigorous impact evaluation. An independent facility would:

Contribute to the "global public good" of knowledge. Reduce tension between implementation and evaluation, which hampers evaluation initiatives within the

donor agencies. Have the ability to disseminate evaluation findings and make available evaluation data.

Consultation Question: What priority should we What priority should we give to adult literacy programs?give to adult literacy programs?

Does literacy acquired later in life have a

similar effect on future generations as

does early education of girls?

Should this be a top priority?

Consultation Question: What priority should be What priority should be given given

to post-primary education?to post-primary education?

Investments in post-primary education

could create an unaffordable burden on

donor and domestic resources and take

away from primary education resources.

Consultation Question: What information should What information should be made available to whom?be made available to whom?

What information do all parents andcitizens need?

What are some examples of informationthat has been made available to parentsand citizens and what was the effect thatit had?