G20 countries represent the world’s leading economies, four-fifths of gross world product and three-quarters of global trade. They also represent about one-third of out of-school girls.
The universal nature of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) means that G20 nations are accountable for ensuring free, equitable, high-quality education within their own borders, while also providing support to poorer countries. The G20 must fulfill their obligation towards closing the $1.8 trillion global education funding gap.
Domestic support
The G20 includes countries with some of the highest numbers of out-of-school girls, like India and Indonesia, and together accounts for approximately one-third of the 130 million girls out of school globally.
For girls in school, rates of secondary school completion in G20 countries are highly variable. Girls in the United Kingdom are the most likely to complete their secondary education, while just a third of girls in India will still be in school for their final exams.
One factor is constant: in every G20 country, the poorest girls are most likely to miss out on a full 12 years of school.
As the data demonstrates, some G20 countries are wasting potential within their own populations by not meeting international commitments to education. And they are particularly failing the poorest girls.
Ultimate accountability for getting girls into school rests with the countries where they live — and this is where the majority of resources must be mobilised. The International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity (the Education Commission) calculates that lower-middle income countries must increase their domestic public spending on education to 6% of GDP and upper-middle income countries to 6.3% of GDP by 2030. Of the nine middle-income countries in the G20, none currently meet these targets. See Table 1.
Girls in G20 countries that charge fees are less likely to complete secondary education. Four of five countries charging tuition fees have the lowest completion rates, both overall and for the poorest girls. See Table 2.
Reducing financial barriers to secondary education — tuition fees and other incidental costs like textbooks, learning materials, transport and uniforms — is particularly advantageous for the poorest girls. When family resources are limited, they are often allocated to boys first.
Global support
Increased domestic funding for education is not enough. Filling the funding gap in low- and middle-income countries requires increased international finance, including official development assistance (ODA). This section focuses on the performance of G20 countries as donors and considers what more they can do to support girls’ education globally.
Aid to education is six times below the level required to meet SDG 4 by 2030. In fact, the share of total aid going to education has fallen consistently for six years from 10% in 2009 to just 6.9% in 2015, according to the latest GEM Report figures. As the evidence in Part One of this paper demonstrates, the development of a healthy, productive workforce that is equipped for 21st century jobs, relies on access to quality education through upper secondary level. Despite increasing levels of total aid, the G20 will not achieve its priorities if the stagnation in aid to education continues. At present only two G20 countries (the UK and Germany) allocate the UN recommended target of 0.7% GNI to ODA. Meeting this target and allocating sufficient levels of total ODA to education is critical if all girls are to receive a full 12 years of quality education (see Table 3).
Malala Fund and UNESCO repeatedly called for at least 10% of all ODA to be dedicated to basic and secondary education. The Education Commission recently revised this globally accepted benchmark to 15% to include expanded pre-primary and additional post-secondary provision. At present, only two of the G20 donor countries are dedicating 15% of all ODA to education, with the United States (3.7%) and Japan (3.9%) disbursing less than a third of this figure to education.
Moreover, as the Table 3 shows, a number of G20 donor countries, including those exceeding the 15% target, disproportionately target education aid towards post-secondary education. This is often spent in donor countries through post-secondary scholarships and in-country student costs.
Scholarships and imputed student costs make up 95% of France’s substantial aid spending on post-secondary education, 87% of Germany’s and more than a third of spending in Korea, Japan and Italy, dwarfing the amount these countries provide for basic and secondary education in developing countries.
G20 nations should reallocate some of this post-secondary spending in their own countries towards lower levels of education in developing countries. For example, the EFA Global Monitoring Report calculated that one scholarship for a Nepalese student in Japan could pay for 229 secondary school students in Nepal.
G20 countries should also improve the impact and effectiveness of international institutions.
Multilaterals play an important role in global aid architecture, pooling resources, convening donors and reducing transaction costs for recipient countries. However, multilateral agencies only accounted for 34% of total ODA for education across 2012–2014, compared to 60% in the health sector, while the portion of total multilateral donor aid allocated to education has fallen from 10% to 7% in the past decade.
Two multilateral mechanisms, the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) and Education Cannot Wait (ECW), target countries most in need of external financing. Funding for both continues to fall short of targets.
Just over half (11) of G20 members contribute to the Global Partnership for Education, which recently developed a strategy to promote efforts to improve gender equality in education. Of those that do contribute, the UK is the largest single donor while Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and Korea have each committed less than 2% of total contributions since 2003. To date, the Education Cannot Wait Fund, which supports education in emergencies, has received contributions from only five G20 countries. See Table 4.
Beyond contributions from traditional DAC donors, the G20 can do more to support education. First, new and emerging donors can lead a focus on education, not just in funding, but in sharing technical expertise and promoting south-south cooperation.
In our Beyond Basics report, Malala Fund highlighted the untapped potential from the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and Arab states to help meet the global education funding gap. According to our calculations, BRICS countries and Saudi Arabia (all G20 members) could have generated an additional $11.9 billion for education in 2015, if they met the DAC target of 0.7% of GNI to aid and prioritised at least 10% of total aid to basic and secondary education. Though accurate data on aid levels for these countries is hard to obtain, the GEM Report’s most recent brief highlighted an encouraging trend of non-DAC donors emerging to fill gaps in global education financing.
For example, from 2013–2015 United Arab Emirates contributed an average of $112 million per year to secondary education, making up some of the shortfall created by reductions in DAC donor contributions.
Second, in order to fully meet the education financing gap, countries must work together to develop new funding sources. As part of its replenishment plans, GPE introduced a new “Leverage Fund” to incentivise low- and lower-middle-income countries to take advantage of additional funding from external sources like multilateral banks and private investment; this could generate at least $3 for every $1 of GPE support received.
Another proposal on the table is the International Finance Facility for Education (IFFed), an investment mechanism that uses guarantees and buy-downs to mobilise additional financing. The Education Commission estimates IFFed could raise an additional $13 billion for education annually by 2020.
Beyond its role in international finance of education, the G20 can use its influence formally as an agenda setting forum for global tax reform and informally in its partnerships with third countries, like the proposed G20 Africa Partnership.
In order to support low- and lower-middle-income countries, the G20 should promote a fairer global tax system, enabling developing countries to grow their tax base and generate increased public revenue.
G20 countries must also hold developing countries accountable for increasing domestic spending on education to allow all girls to learn and lead.
Check out the rest of the report:
Introduction: How G20 investments in girls’ education improve our world
Part 1: The evidence for investing in girls’ education
Part 2: How well does the G20 support secondary education for girls?
Full PDF of “Safer, Healthier, Wealthier: How G20 investments in girls’ education improve our world”
