THE DEVELOPING WORLD
Once again, Brussels has its eye on the wrong aid targets
Autumn 2007
EU aid money needed for primary education in the world’s poorest countries is being diverted elsewhere, says Vagn Berthelsen, a campaigner for more generous spending to combat poverty. He particularly faults the European Commission for its neglect of millions of children deprived of a basic education
The importance of education in lifting people out of poverty can never be over-estimated. I make no apology for stating the obvious, as the obvious is so often overlooked, particularly by the European Commission which has been systematically ignoring the role of education when dealing with poverty.
As one of the world’s leading aid donors, the EU’s executive body is committed to the Millennium Development Goals, and among these goals agreed in 2000 at a UN summit is that by 2015 all children in the world will be able to complete a full course of primary education.
To be fair, some regions seem promising. According to a UN report last year, the net enrolment rates for children in primary education in Latin American and the Caribbean rose from 86% in the early 1990s to 95% in 2003-04. But fewer than 50% of children of primary school age are enrolled in a school in sub-Saharan African countries like Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti.
Africa is geographically the biggest area of responsibility for Louis Michel, the EU’s development Commissioner. But Michel has failed to see that any sensible programme for poverty reduction must have primary education at its core. His speeches on the EU strategy for the continent have attached more importance to university exchanges between the Union and Africa. No doubt these exchanges have their merits, but they should not be given priority over primary education in the world’s poorest countries.
In a recent report, Alliance 2015, the group of which I am President that seeks a greater European contribution to the fight against poverty, pointed out that the proportion of EU development aid allocated to basic education fell from 6.4% in 2000 to a mere 1.5% in 2004. The European Union also cut the proportion of its expenditure on education in countries classified as “low income” from 56% in 2000 to less than 29% in 2004.
Some Commission officials have argued that the figures paint an incomplete picture. They say that because EU aid is increasingly given to a country’s national budget – rather than being earmarked for a particular programme – some of this money was probably used for education. But, given that EU aid originates from the taxpayer, the onus is on the Commission to say how money channelled through a general budget is used. The European Parliament has repeatedly urged that at least 20% of EU aid be reserved for health and education.
Almost €23bn has been agreed in EU aid for the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of countries in 2008-13, with half of this being provided in general budget support. In theory, the Commission’s rationale for making greater use of budget support is sound; it allows developing countries to set their own priorities for effective aid. But only up to a point, it seems.
In November last year, Jamaica’s then ambassador to the EU, Evadne Coye, told what happened when an aid plan for her country was being drawn-up. She said that Jamaican participants in all dealings with the Commission put education as a top priority, particularly for primary schooling, teacher training and helping children with special needs. But the Commission said that education must only be a component in one of two central themes for the aid plan. Education would be included in a general area called “governance”; secondly, “competitiveness” would help Jamaica to adapt to the economic partnership agreements the Commission is negotiating with the ACP.
This would suggest that the Commission is more concerned with promoting a trade policy primarily designed to further the interests of western firms, than with the needs of poor children.
In another case, the authorities in Burundi have pledged free access to primary school for all children, yet anti-poverty campaigners say the Commission has overlooked education while drawing up its aid plan for that country. Commission representatives have acknowledged that general budget support was not created for supporting health and education but rather for macro-economic purposes. A short-sighted view, surely. For an economy or a democracy to flourish, it is essential to have a healthy and well-educated population.
Both government and non-governmental bodies have cited real problems in reaching the poor with general budget support. The Beninese office of Social Watch, which monitors the use of development aid, says that general budget support is like a “black box” for this West African country. Information on its use has been extremely difficult to obtain.
The problem of child labour is closely linked to education. The UN’s International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that there are more than 200m child labourers in the world, most of them under the age of 15. Rather than being in a classroom, these children spend long hours down mines, on building sites, operating dangerous machines in factories and, in the worst cases, engaged in armed conflict or prostitution.
Louis Michel has rightly recommended that measures for ending child labour should be a mandatory condition for providing general budget support. But his colleague Benita Ferrero Waldner, the European Commissioner for external relations, needs to understand how child labour is an impediment to genuine development. Her portfolio includes Asia and Latin America; notwithstanding their achievements in boosting education, both regions still have sizeable child labour problems.
The EU’s Reform Treaty will require the Union to uphold children’s rights in its dealings with wider world, but this aim is not reflected in the latest series of aid strategies that the Commission has prepared for Asia and Latin America. Ecuador, for example, has one of the highest rates of child labour in Latin America, yet the Commission recommends no programme for dealing with it. About 34% of Ecuadoreans aged 10-14 are in paid employment. Human rights organisations say these children are exploited particularly in prostitution and on banana plantations. More than 5,000 children in Ecuador have been become entangled in the sex trade, according to the ILO.
The plans for Asia and Latin America are covered by the EU’s new development cooperation instrument. Thanks to strenuous efforts by MEPs, this contains a legally-binding provision that 20% of all aid goes to health and education. But the European Parliament must monitor development to ensure that this commitment is honoured. If it emerges that the Commission is failing in this task, Parliament should refuse to sign off the EU’s budget.
It is worth remembering that the Commission and the EU’s member governments have considerable leverage with other donors. The World Bank is trying to raise over $20bn for the International Development Authority, its main financing arm for the poorest nations. Europe is being asked to stump up about 60% of this sum, so it should make its contribution conditional on changes to all World Bank policies that harm the poor or the environment.
The amount of money needed to ensure universal access to primary education is not astronomical. Britain’s new prime minister, former finance minister Gordon Brown, has estimated it would amount to $10bn a year by 2010, and described it as “the most cost-effective investment the world could make”. Quite so.