Transcript EFA Flagships: multi-partner support mechanisms to implement Dakar Framework for Action Fourth Meeting of the Working Group on Education for All 22-23 July 2003 UNESCO, Paris.

EFA Flagships: multi-partner
support mechanisms to implement
Dakar Framework for Action
Fourth Meeting of the Working Group
on Education for All
22-23 July 2003
UNESCO, Paris
What is an EFA Flagship?
• EFA Flagship is about partnership
• A structured set of activities carried out
by voluntary partners, under the
leadership of one or more United Nations
specialized agencies, in order to address
specific challenges in achieving the Dakar
goals
Background and Rationale
•
Dakar highlighted the importance of inter-agency
partnerships to enhance progress towards EFA
• Most EFA flagships have emerged as by-products of the
collective commitments made in Dakar
• They reflect flexible approaches for support and cooperation as regards particular aspects of the EFA
agenda
• Flagships adopt an interdisciplinary perspective: linking
education and other factors (health, nutrition, rural
development and conflict)
The EFA flagships: The rationale for multi-partner
initiatives
• The Initiative on the Impact of HIV/AIDS on Education
• Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE)
• The Right to Education for Persons with Disabilities: Towards
Inclusion
• Education for Rural People (ERP)
• Education in Situations of Emergency and Crisis
• Focusing Resources on Effective School Health (FRESH)
• Teachers and the Quality of Education
• The 10-year United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative (UNGEI)
• Literacy in the Framework of United Nations Literacy Decade
(UNLD)
Impact of HIV/AIDS on Education
The HIV/AIDS pandemic impacts on learning
opportunities and education systems in myriad ways
• 508,000 children under 15 years died from AIDS in 2001
• 14 million children under 15 years are orphans from
AIDS
• 860,000 children lost their teachers to AIDS in subSaharan Africa in 1999
• 1,000 teachers are dying of AIDS each year in Zambia
• Globally, HIV/AIDS is estimated to add US$975 million
per year to the cost of achieving EFA
Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE)
A large body of research has shown the importance of
Early childhood care and education
• Early childhood education programmes prepare children for
school, improving their performance and retention, and
reducing the need for repetition
• Girls enrolled in early childhood programmes are better
prepared for school and frequently stay in school longer
• It is inadmissible that fewer than 50% of children aged 3-5
years had access to pre-primary education in 2000.
• In sub-Saharan Africa only 18% of eligible children have
access to pre-primary education. In half of the countries, less
than 4% children are enrolled in pre-primary education
The Right to Education for Persons with
Disabilities: Towards Inclusion
This flagship strives to address the challenge of
ensuring the right to education to children and
youth with disabilities
• 98% of children with disabilities in developing countries do
not attend schools
• 500,000 children every year lose some part of their vision
due to vitamin A deficiency
• 41 million babies are born each year at risk of mental
impairment due to insufficient iodine in their mothers’ diets
• Out of 26,000 persons killed and injured by landmines every
year, 40% are children
Education for Rural People (ERP)
Three billion people or 60 per cent of the population in
developing countries, amounting to half of the world
population, live in rural areas
• Children's access to education in rural areas is still much
lower than in urban areas
• Adult illiteracy is much higher in rural areas than in
urban areas
• Quality of education is poorer in rural areas
• Most of the world’s poor and hungry live in rural areas
• Education to serve rural development is one of the main
challenges facing the drive to achieve EFA
Education in Situations of Emergency and Crisis
Crisis, conflicts and emergencies affect education
systems in different ways:
• 50 million displaced throughout the world
• 45-95% of classrooms neglected or damaged
• Teachers dispersed, killed or not working
• Reduction in enrolment
• Diversion of educational resources to military or security
purposes
• Values and social cohesion eroded, HIV/AIDS proliferation
• Poverty and conflict are linked: 60% of low HDI and 24% of
medium HDI are conflict countries
Focusing Resources on Effective School Health
(FRESH)
Evidence has shown that investing in school-based health and
nutrition programmes results in real educational advantages:
• Better learning in school and better educational outcomes can be
obtained by boosting attendance and educational achievement
• Enhanced Equity: particular benefits for the poor and
disadvantaged children
• Contribution to youth development: tackling violence, substance
abuse, teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases
• A cost-effective investment in education (not just health): by
promoting learning and reducing repetition, absenteeism and
dropout
Teachers and the Quality of Education
This flagship aims at implementing this EFA strategy No. 9:
“Enhance the status, morale and professionalism of teachers”
• 15 to 35 million additional primary school teachers will
be needed to meet the 2015 MDGs and the Dakar Goals
• No country can implement EFA without good quality
teaching
• It is crucial that teachers and their organizations be
involved in decision-making in the formulation and
implementation of EFA national plans
The 10-year United Nations Girls’ Education
Initiative (UNGEI)
This Initiative aims to mount a sustained campaign to
improve the quality and availability of girls’ education so
that to ensure gender parity in education.
• Out of 104 million school-age children not enrolled in
school in 2000, 57% were girls
• About 49 countries are seriously at risk of missing the
Dakar gender goal in2005, nearly 50% are in subSaharan Africa
• Gender issue in education is at the heart of poverty
eradication and achievement of MDGs in developing
countries
Literacy in the Framework of United
Nations Literacy Decade (UNLD)
UNLD offers an opportunity to put special emphasis on
literacy for all ages. This flagship promotes literacy as a
lifelong learning process that takes place both within
and outside the school system.
•In 2000, 862 million adults were illiterate, 2/3
of them are women
• 79 countries are likely to miss the Dakar literacy
goal of halving their rate of adult illiteracy by
2015
Potential and impact of the EFA flagship
initiatives
• Synergy from a collective endeavour tailored to
overcome serious bottlenecks to achieving EFA
• Partnership, engaging a wide range of entities
globally and locally
• Increased mutual understanding of inter-related
challenges of EFA
• A growing co-operative spirit among EFA partners
at international level
• International partners working to a commonly
interpreted agenda
Some concerns at country level
• Confusion and overlap in existing EFA
mechanisms/flagships (e.g.: FRESH and HIV/AIDS)
• Information, communication and coordination
gap
• Inadequate links with other international
support mechanisms and development
frameworks (UNDAF, PRSP, SWAP)
• Insufficient funding of flagship initiatives
Emerging issues
• Sequencing: countries struggling to cope with
successive international requirements: UNDAF,
PRSP, FTI
• Coordination and ownership: UNDAF are United
Nations driven, SWAP, PRSPs and FTI are led by the
World Bank, in collaboration with donors
• Opportunities: great potential to introduce flagships
systematically into the UNDAF and PRSP processes
since they are cross-cutting
• EFA flagships should be promoted as multi-partner
support strategies rather than United Nations
initiatives
Perspectives for enhancement of impact of
EFA flagships
At the country level, action needs to be taken in order to:
• Close the information gap
• Integrate flagships into EFA planning process
• Support inter-ministerial collaboration
• Support pilot projects at decentralized levels
• Reinforce integration of flagships in regional and subregional mechanisms
• Integrate flagships into other development frameworks
• Involve national government and local EFA stakeholders in
all flagship activities
Perspectives for enhancement of impact of
EFA flagships
At regional/international level, there is need to:
• Integrate flagships into regional development frameworks (NEPAD)
• Discuss EFA flagships within United Nations and bilateral agencies,
from central to decentralized levels
• Strengthen monitoring and evaluation of EFA flagships
• Support inter-flagship collaboration through dialogue between
focal points
• Strengthen the cooperation and communication between EFA
partners sponsoring flagships
• Avoid competition and duplication; promote complementarity
• Include ‘EFA flagships updates’ on agenda of WGEFA
… In conclusion
• EFA flagship initiatives demonstrate commitment
and cooperative spirit of EFA partners
• EFA flagships inform policy on the multidimensional aspects of education
• Achieving EFA goals implies a multi-pronged
approach, taking into consideration the impact on
education as well as interaction between education
and other development sectors
Open questions for Discussion
• How far do the different assistance frameworks,
(UNDAF, SWAP or PRSPs) present opportunities
to reinforce the impact of EFA flagship
programmes?
• What
should be the articulation between
assistance frameworks and the EFA flagships?
• What are the next steps to be undertaken in
order to promote this articulation?
Presented by:
John Daniel
Assistant Director General for Education
Education Sector
UNESCO
7, Place de Fontenoy
75700 Paris, France