Capacity Development and Education Quality: Caught between donor commitments and absorption capacities

1. Capacity Development and Education Quality:Caught between donor commitments and absorption capacities Gert Flaig, Senior Education Advisor, GTZ Eschborn Dr. Temby Caprio, Sector Advisor, GTZ (Bonn, BMZ) with Dr. Herbert Bergmann & Ilse Voss-Lengnik, GTZ BEIP, Yemen

2. International Commitments… and Lessons Learned • World Education Forum in Dakar: EFA-FTI • Millenium Development Goals • Monterrey: Financing for Development • Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness • Gleneagles: G8 Summit – focus on Africa • St. Petersburg: G8 Summit – focus on education • EFA Global Monitoring Reports • WDR 2004: Making services work for poor people • Capacity Building in Africa, World Bank OED, 2005 • The Challenge of Capacity Development: Working Toward Good Practice, DAC GOVNET, 2006 • Fredriksen (2005): External Aid to “Hard Core” EFA Countries: The Need to Accompany FinancialAid with Technical Support

3. New Numbers • United Kingdom: $US 15 billion over 10 years for education • The Netherlands: €700 million in 2007 alone for basic education • Germany: €120 million annually for basic education • Current estimated immediate FTI financing gap: $US 400 million • FTI expansion (20 endorsed countries, + 39 expected by 2008) • DAC Working Party on Statistics: 1995-2004 trend shows increase in aid to basic education

4. The Dilemmas • Unspent disbursements • Misspent disbursements • Too much emphasis on plans and an FTI “seal of approval” and too little attention to implementation • Results/outcomes: too much emphasis on input and too little attention to the quality of learning in the classroom

5. Education and Poverty Reduction: Main findings and problems (1) • Mainly poor people do not have access to affordable education • Results of the education process are worse for the poor than for the non-poor • Education services are often dysfunctional and fail poor people (e.g. absence rates, corruption) Source: WDR 2004 - Making Services Work for Poor People

6. Education and Poverty Reduction: Main findings and problems (2) • The „tecnical“ quality of education is very low (inappropriate and/or inefficient methods and tools) • Services are not responsive to clients (“social distance” between providers and their clients) • Accountability relations do not work. This refers mainly to the accountability of policy makers, government and its service providers to poor people • Little evaluation, little innovation, stagnant productivity Source: WDR 2004 - Making Services Work for Poor People

7. Improvement in Aid Effectiveness without Capacity Development in Service Delivery? Additional budget needs a „supply response“: • Relevant skilled personnel (teachers, head-teachers administrators…) • Effective organizations at all levels (governmental and non-governmental) • Physical capacity The efficiency and impact of additional expenditures depends on the availability of real resources: trained staff, infrastructure and effective organizations at all levels. If these resources do not exist, the return on additional expenditure will decline.

8. From FTI (2002) to … Policy Data Capacity Financing

9. From FTI (2002) to… Financing Policy Data Capacity

10. From FTI (2002) to… the Paris Declaration (2005) • The Paris Declaration stresses capacity development but with emphasis on financial management and procurement. • Capacity development in all areas and at all levels which have to do with service delivery is the exception.

11. CF Summary of Disbursements (March 06) 2003/4 2005 Allocated Disbursed Pending Allocated Disbursed Pending Djibouti - - - - - - Ghana - - - 8.0 8.0 - Guyana 4.0 4.0 - 4.0 4 0 - Kenya - - - 24.2 24.2 - Lesotho - - - - - - Madagasc. - - - 10.0 6.0 4.0 Mauritania 7.0 7.0 - 2.0 - 2.0 Moldova - - - - - - Nicaragua 7.0 7.0 - 7.0 - 7.0 Niger 13.0 9.0 4.0 8.0 - 8.0 Tajikistan - - - - - - The Gambia 4.0 4.0 - 4.0 - 4.0 Timor Leste - - - - - - Yemen 10.0 10.0 - 10.0 - 10.0 Total 45.0 41.0 4.0 77.2 42.235.0 In $US Mio. Cumulative Disbursements: 83,2 Source: CF Status Report March 2006, FTI Secretariat

12. Main Challenges? of PBAs in order to contribute to the MDGs and EFA Goals • Scaling-up of activities proven to be effective (construction of more schools and classrooms, textbooks for all pupils, more learning materials, more teachers) more “products” (and more of the same) • Enhance institutional performance (Ed. Ministry, decentralized institutions, teacher training institutions, schools, etc..) improved outcomes • Change Management

13. Closing the „capacity gap“ across the education system: Capacity Development for what? • Knowledge Management • Policy (Framework & Dialogue) • Research and Development • Public Financial Management • School Management • Classroom Management • Curriculum Development • Assessment • Monitoring and Evaluation • ...

14. Change Management: The Role of Technical Support • Technical Advisors are enablers, catalysts, facilitators, coaches • Intercultural competence • Technical competence

15. Adequate Cooperation Modalities for effective work in the educationsector • Baskets, budget support, TC, TA-pooling Flexible approaches/ complementarity: • Adequate „learning projects“ within PBAs • Long and short term technical assistance • More flexible TC and a clear concentration on Capacity Development at all levels and all important areas of the education system

16. Grazie gert.flaig@gtz.de temby.caprio@gtz.de herbert.bergmann@gtz.de ilse.voss-lengnik@gtz.de