It is a shameful fact that the human race does not invest in the future of many of its own children. Around the world, some 58 million children – a number greater than the population of South Africa – are still denied their right to primary education.
It’s a shocking statistic, but it’s all too easy to become blinded by huge numbers. Each one of these children represents a personal tragedy and a global shame.
I remember my visit to a remote village in Bahr El Ghazal province in what is now South Sudan. The sixteen year old teacher was valiantly trying to instruct a class of more than a hundred children using only a stone and a painted wall as a blackboard. Here, as in tens of thousands of similar towns and villages across the world, the desire for education was palpable. Why? Simple: it gives parents hope for a better future for their children.
I wonder what happened to that teacher, those children. That visit took place in 2003 – when the Comprehensive Peace Agreement was just being signed with Sudan. More than 12 years later, the next generation of children in South Sudan are again being denied their right to a decent education because of war and grinding poverty.
The denial of the right to a good quality education is unacceptable in this or any other era. But what would be less acceptable still would be to abandon our search for ways to right this wrong.
The reasons why we fail to provide universal quality education are complex and varied. More funding is not the only answer. But it is, to use the economists’ favourite phrase, ‘a necessary if not sufficient condition’ – especially for the poorest children. A recent UNESCO report estimates that there is now a financing shortfall of US$ 22 billion per year in low-income countries to achieve basic education for all.
Little wonder, then, that only half of the world’s nation states manage to educate all their children even to primary level.
In Norway this week, leading donor nations and developing countries will gather to discuss this seemingly intractable problem. The Oslo Education Summit has a strong focus on traditional western donor countries and calls on them to meet their promises to fund education and development in the world’s poorest countries.
That in itself would be great.
But we have to recognise that the world has changed since these promises were made. The financial crisis has left many donor countries with huge debt burdens of their own. The Eurozone is facing an existential crisis with the possible exit of Greece, one of the oldest democracies in the world. And the political and economic global centre of gravity has shifted eastwards.
We need to shift our focus with it to reflect this changed political and economic reality. Developing countries are increasingly looking to Beijing, Delhi and Doha for the answers to their education and development problems. We need to respond with creative and innovative approaches to financing as well as service delivery and data collection in the education sector.
There is hope. New players are emerging to fill the gaps left by traditional donors following the economic and financial crisis in 2008. New economy countries like China and India now provide more finance to Africa than the World Bank, especially in infrastructure and private sector development.
And in the Middle East, Arab donor countries and independent foundations and organisations provided over US$1.9 billion to support education programmes in developing countries.
To take one example close to my heart, the Qatar Development Fund has committed to spend at least 50% of its official development assistance on education. Through the work of the Educate a Child programme of the Education Above All Foundation (EAA) – set up by Sheikha Moza bint Nasser in 2012 to support global education – we have already helped millions of children around the world receive good-quality primary education.
It’s not just about donations. EAA is devising and implementing ways to bring to bear new sources of finance from long-term investors to bolster the funding of education around the world, using sustainable mechanisms to enable governments and the private sector to invest properly in their best assets: their people.
For example, we are looking at ways to leverage the largest source of external financing for poor countries. This is not foreign aid, but private remittances – funds sent home by migrant workers who have moved to richer countries to try and make a better life for their families back at home.
The World Bank estimates that in 2014 migrant workers from developing countries sent home over US$440 billion, a staggering sum equating to nearly three times official aid. And these funds are by definition targeted at the communities who need them most, without having to go through intermediaries.
Sadly, workers are often charged excessively high fees for sending their money home and their families are charged again when they collect their money. At EAA we are examining ways of harnessing some of this vast flow of capital around the world, to make it work better for migrant workers and their families, and to divert commissions away from multinational finance corporations and into education projects. We believe we are close to a solution.
We are also actively looking at ways to help authorities in developing countries find affordable sources of funding to fund their education programmes. Raising money on international capital markets for investment of the scale needed is simply unafforadable for many authorities due to their poor credit ratings.
But what if this borrowing could be underwritten by economically far stronger states or their representatives? The cost of borrowing would plummet, and, if strong project governance of the type that EAA is able to provide can be brought to bear, the risk is minimal. In fact, the long-term economic returns of educating the population are such that, with a little outside help, such investments could be among the best that any developing nation could ever make.
This is not just a pipe dream. EAA is talking to global financial institutions about how we can bring our new bond concept to market and finally deliver universal primary education to all corners of the world.
Meanwhile, private philanthropy is playing a growing role. Global giving champions like Bill and Melinda Gates have shown extraordinary leadership and have transformed the global health sector, but there are thousands of less famous but equally generous global givers who are improving the educational prospects of those less well off than themselves.
The challenges remain daunting, but EAA is bringing new thinking. We are breaking down the assumption that providing education is the job of government alone. We are bringing new expertise and new ways of thinking to our projects. We are persuading donors that by giving to education, they are also benefiting other sectors including health and civil society. The opportunities are limitless.
Every child in school is now a realistic goal. It is our duty to seize this opportunity, and our privilege.
ANA
* Dr Bermingham has over 25 years experience in education and international development. He was formerly the Head of Education for the UK government’s Department for International Development (DFID), the Head of the Secretariat for the Education for All Fast Track Initiative at the World Bank (now the Global Partnership for Education) and a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council for Education. He has been a board member of the Commonwealth of Learning and the Chair of the Trustees for the UK Forum for International Education and Training (UKFIET).