缅北禁地

A line of school boys holding their arms up and yelling in joy
 ?UNESCO

Financing education
Investing more, more equitably and more efficiently in education

Building on the SDG4-Education 2030 commitments, GPE Heads of State Declaration on Education Financing, the Paris Declaration on Education Financing, and other existing frameworks on financing for development, this Call to Action on Educational Investment urges all countries and all partners to take concrete action both nationally and internationally in order to invest more, to invest more equitably and to invest more efficiently in education.

  • Assume their responsibility and leadership for the adequate financing of education, working to identify and solve the main roadblocks to fulfill both domestically agreed priorities and internationally agreed goals for education, especially those related to SDG4.
  • Increase the fiscal space for education and commit to ring-fencing funds to social protection and education systems. Following the Incheon and Paris Declarations, governments shall allocate at least 4-6% of GDP and at least 15-20% of total public expenditure to education, protecting public education budgets from the constrained fiscal environment resulting from the COVID 19 pandemic and the global economic crisis.
  • Commit to protect and increase real investment per student and per school-age person towards an ambitious national benchmark established according to the national and regional context.
  • Commit to reach an adequate tax-to-GDP ratio as required, through ambitious and progressive tax reforms with linked commitments towards financing educational investment.
  • Establish specific goals with respect the percentage of educational investment going to the 40% and 20% of families with lowest income, to those living in rural or distant areas, children with disabilities or those especially vulnerable.
  • Track and report on educational investment and its results in a disaggregated and systematic way, to make sure educational investment is equitably distributed at all levels of education, starting with pre-primary, with special attention to those most vulnerable. Integrate gender responsiveness into public expenditure monitoring to redress imbalances and restructure expenditures to promote gender equality.
  • Commit to investing more in re-skilling and life-learning opportunities, to help prepare both youth and adults for the economy of the future, and to spur new, decent job opportunities in the growing green and digital economies.
  • Increase the efficiency of educational investment by reducing leakages; increasing delivery capacities of the education stakeholders and institutions; working across education partners in an inclusive manner; strengthening accountability frameworks; and improving teacher workforce development and management.
  • Take action on linking sector planning and budget programming so that education plans have clear and realistic financing strategies with robust cost and revenue productions; and develop adequate and timely data to link and evaluate these plans with respect to expected outcomes.
  • Promote a whole of government approach, through the use of Integrated National Financing Frameworks (INFFs) and SDG-aligned budgeting strategies which allow for pooled- or joint-funding across development sectors, in line with wider national development strategies and priorities and recognizing that, in the end, the objective is not a particular sector, but the real persons whose lives are transformed by public policies.

The international community shall support, complement and stimulate national efforts in educational investment:

  • Fulfill the established benchmark 0.7% of donor Gross National Income (GNI) for official development assistance (ODA) and increase the proportion of such aid going to education to 15% - 20% of total ODA and allocate these to the countries where the need is greatest.
  • There is also scope for international financing institutions, multilateral and regional banks to significantly expand their current spending on education; and for philanthropies to significantly step up their contribution to supporting public education systems.
  • Scale up proven innovative financing mechanisms including the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) Multiplier fund, which unlocks additional financing from public and private funders, and support new innovative financial mechanisms like the International Finance Facility for Education (IFFEd) which aims at leveraging significantly increased education financing for LMICs through regional and multilateral development banks.
  • Work on scaling up existing successful smart aid financing, and grants to support the poorest countries to increase fiscal space and address rising debt distress, which precludes significant borrowing in many cases, including LICs and LMICs.
  • Agree on a new international collective approach to financing of education for refugees and other learners displaced by climate catastrophes. This must address the distinct education needs of displaced and refugee children.
  • Prioritize global actions on taxes, supporting international reforms that can help countries increase their tax income in a rapid and progressive way, shifting international financial institutions country-level dialogue to be bolder and more progressive on tax reforms, and ensuring global rules do not push countries into “race to the bottom” strategies in terms of taxes and harmful tax incentives. This includes global action on tax loopholes, agreements on a global asset register, the reduction of illicit financial flows, unfair trade taxation, acting on tax havens and promoting a process for setting fair global tax rules.
  • Revise the international financial and debt architecture to ensure sufficient financing can be mobilized in support of long-term, sustainable development objectives, including by removing conditionalities that require cutting expenditure on education as a pre-requisite to attain new financing, and using innovative tools such as debt-for-education swaps.
  • Support action on debt relief, restructuring, and in some cases, cancellation, for any countries spending more on debt servicing than education.
  • Urge the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other international financial institutions to address obstacles such as public sector wage constraints that prevent increased spending on education; and champion policies that will allow significant new recruitment of professional teachers wherever there are shortages.
  • Find new solutions and mechanisms that can unblock funding and advance the case for a new allocation of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) and reallocation of existing SDRs to countries most in need to invest in education.
  • Create new norms and formulas to help Ministries of Finance and Governments as a whole factor in long-term returns to investment in education so that education spending is not seen purely as a consumption expenditure in medium term expenditure frameworks and other planning / budget documents.

Like all TES flagships, the call to action will be promoted and championed in the coming months and followed up on and monitored under the SDG4 High-Level Steering Committee (HLSC) and associated platforms, both through its data and monitoring and the finance technical committees, composed of Member States and expert partners.