Brookings: Experts - Kevin Watkins

The Sprint to the 2015 Development Goals: Reaching the Marginalized with Quality Education and Learning

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 09:00:00 -0400

Event Information

April 17, 2013
9:00 AM - 12:00 PM EDT

Saul/Zilkha Rooms
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

On April 17, the Center for Universal Education hosted members of the global education community for a public discussion on the two main challenges preventing the realization of universal education. As the clock winds down on the deadline to achieve the Education for All targets and Millennium Development Goals, there are still 61 million children out of primary school and another 71 million not enrolled in secondary school. There are 250 million children that have not mastered basic reading skills, and 200 million don’t have the relevant skills to support meaningful livelihoods. Evidence shows that education is one of the most effective ways to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty. Clearly, more must be done to ensure that all children are in school and learning, especially marginalized groups that are furthest behind.

The first panel examined issues related to financing education. CUE Director Rebecca Winthrop emphasized that although there is a $26 million financing gap for global education, donor support has stagnated and some countries like the Unites States, Canada, France, Japan, the Netherlands and Belgium have cut their foreign aid to education. Alice Albright, CEO of the Global Partnership for Education (GPE), pointed out that education ministers from developing countries are creating compelling education sector plans and working hard to improve their education systems. She stressed how important it is for governments and development partners to invest and support the efforts to help fund the $1.3 billion in pending GPE grants. She noted that innovative solutions could include financial transaction tax systems, local financing mechanisms, private sector partnerships and the use of technology. Nigel Chapman, CEO of Plan International, highlighted the importance of adding a gender lens to the issues of education. In an austere budgetary climate in many advanced economies where official development assistance is evaporating, it is essential that education is not forgotten because it requires complex and long term vision. Elizabeth King, director of Education for the World Bank’s Human Development Network, described the demand for education by countries, governments and communities. She highlighted how education is regularly cited as a top priority for people, even those living in fragile and conflict-affected contexts. King argued that this should send a strong message to the international community that education can play a role in building good citizenship within societies and can be a lever for growth and development. Therefore, it is important for resources to be used effectively and efficiently.

The second panel explored the need for more equitable and better quality education. CUE Senior Fellow Kevin Watkins presented data on the large numbers of out-of-school children in sub-Saharan Africa, and the causes of non-enrollment and school dropout, such as early marriage, child labor, conflict and poor educational quality. He pointed out that one of the biggest failings of the international donor community is the lack of provision within national education strategies to reach the most marginalized. Watkins emphasized that the reason why progress has stalled is largely because the same interventions and strategies are being used for marginalized groups when new and different approaches are needed. Baela Raza Jamil, director of programs at the Center of Education and Consciousness, described her work with the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) in Pakistan and how she has been able to mobilize country-wide attention to issues around deficiencies in quality education in Pakistan.

She discussed the large-scale household and school assessment tools that have been created to measure differences within districts and across provinces. Jamil also talked about a new program, “Learning for Access”, that targets youth literacy and numeracy. Sumaya Saluja of the YP Foundation discussed the critical role that youth can play in tackling challenges in the education system. She described her work to measure school quality and her efforts to change traditional mindsets about girls’ education in India. Albert Motivan, head of Education Indictors and Data Analysis at UNESCO Institute for Statistics, presented evidence to illuminate the macro-level challenges facing global education, including UNICEF’s Out of School Initiative, which shows patterns of enrollment and progression across different segments of the global population. He also discussed the newly released report by the Learning Metrics Task Force, which outlines the different areas of learning that need to be measured, including readiness to learn, literacy and numeracy, competencies around analytic thinking, problem solving and ICT literacy.

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The Sprint to the 2015 Development Goals: Reaching the Marginalized with Quality Education and Learning

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Mumbai Monolith Epitomises Need for Post-2015 Agenda to Tackle Inequality

Kevin Watkins — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 14:12:00 -0500

If you want a glimpse across the yawning chasm that separates the world's super rich from the ultra poor, there's no better place than Mumbai's Altamount Road.

Look up and you'll see Antilla, the world's most expensive home. With spectacular ocean views, swimming and gym facilities, and no fewer than three helipads, the 27-storey shaft of steel and glass is the residence of Mukesh Ambani. Chairman of Reliance Industry, a global energy conglomerate, Ambani – net worth $21bn – is India's richest person and ranks 19th on Forbes' list of global billionaires.

Stroll up to Byculla district and you enter what feels like a parallel universe. This is the world inhabited by Mumbai's 6 million slum dwellers. Most people survive on less than $2 a day. Visibly malnourished kids who should be in school are collecting metal to sell as scrap. The sanitation is non-existent. But you get a great view of Antilla at sunset.

Go back 15 years, and there were just two dollar billionaires in India. Now there are 46. The $176bn total net worth of the billionaire community has climbed from about 1% of GDP to 12%. That's enough to eliminate absolute poverty in India twice over, with enough left over to double spending on the country's shockingly underfinanced public health system. Meanwhile, poverty has been falling at an abysmally slow rate – and child hunger is hardly falling at all.

Rising income inequality is globalisation's theme tune. As Oxfam highlighted in a report last week (pdf), what is happening in India is part of a wider pattern. Technological progress, market-oriented reforms, and excessively generous tax regimes are driving a wedge between rich and poor, magnified by the opportunities created through trade and finance – and by a parallel failure to finance decent public services for the poor.

Less widely recognised has been the impact of surging inequality on efforts to reach the 2015 millennium development goals. Widening gaps in wealth and opportunity have acted as a brake on poverty reduction and progress in child survival, nutrition and education. Yet inequality remains conspicuous by its absence from the agenda for the post-2015 development goals.

This week's meeting of the high-level UN panel framing the post-2015 goals provides an opportunity to change this. As one of three commissioners co-chairing the gathering in the Liberian capital Monrovia, Britain's prime minister, David Cameron, should be playing a leadership role in making the case for a strengthened focus on equity. After all, inclusive growth and equal opportunity are central themes running through the UK's Department for International Development's (DfID) aid programmes.

Nowhere are the corrosive effects of extreme inequality more evident than in relation to poverty reduction. The rate at which poverty declines is a function of two things: economic growth and the share of any increment to growth captured by the poor.

Rising inequality dampens the poverty-reducing effects of growth. Over the past two decades, Asia's Gini coefficient – the most widely used measure of inequality – has increased from 39 to 46. Had it remained constant, poverty incidence would by now be 28% lower. Meanwhile, every percentage point of growth in Brazil has been reducing poverty at five times the rate in China, and 10 times the rate in India. The reason: Brazil has sustained economic growth while reducing inequality through social protection programmes.

Inequality has also been a barrier to accelerated poverty reduction in Africa. Last year, Kofi Annan warned that governments across the region were allowing extreme wealth disparities to slow the pace at which economic recovery lifts people out of poverty.

Recent research reinforces the case for a stronger focus on equity. In a report to be released next month, Laurence Chandy and his colleagues at the Brookings Institution have explored a range of scenarios for poverty levels in 2025. Holding growth constant but allowing inequality to rise at the rate witnessed in much of Asia would raise the global incidence of poverty from 7% to 11%, keeping another 266 million people below the $1.25 threshold.

The really bad news is that extreme inequality is also bad for growth. IMF research shows that it restricts the development of markets, limiting investment opportunities for the poor, and encourages speculative financial activity. But high concentrations of wealth also skew political power towards vested interests, undermining efficiency. Pakistan and Nigeria urgently need to mobilise tax revenues to invest in the social and economic infrastructure required to support growth, but tax codes are drafted by the powerful to facilitate evasion by the wealthy.

Gaps in opportunity mirror those in wealth. In much of Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, children born to poor families are between five and 10 times likelier to die in their first year – and research by Save the Children suggests the gap is widening. With up to 70 million children still out of school, progress towards universal primary education has stalled, with the most marginalised children – child labourers, poor rural girls, slum dwellers and ethnic minorities – falling further behind. And today's disparities in education are tomorrow's inequalities in skills, wages and wealth.

Setting targets for greater equity is not straightforward. But complexity should not become a pretext for inertia in the face of one of the greatest development challenges of our age. To set the ball rolling, how about a wealth inequality ceiling that limits the GDP share of the richest 10% to no more than 12 times that of the poorest. The goals for the next decade should also include targets for eliminating wealth and gender gaps in child survival, ante-natal care, and school participation.

Clearly targets alone don't deliver results. But equity-based goals would turn a spotlight on the policies needed to reduce the inequalities holding back human development. More than that, they would drag the post-2015 debate out of its technocratic comfort zone, echo the demands of social justice activists across the world, and mobilise a wider constituency for change.

Authors

Kevin Watkins

Publication: The Guardian

Image Source: © Danish Siddiqui / Reuters

Too Little Access, Not Enough Learning: Africa’s Twin Deficit in Education

Kevin Watkins — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 12:25:00 -0500

Editor's Note: This article was originally published in the This Is Africa Special Report, Access +: Towards a post-MDG development agenda on education.

Africa’s education crisis seldom makes media headlines or summit agendas and analysis by the Brookings Center for Universal Education (CUE) explains why this needs to change. With one-in-three children still out of school, progress towards universal primary education has stalled. Meanwhile, learning levels among children who are in school are abysmal. Using a newly developed Learning Barometer, CUE estimates that 61 million African children will reach adolescence lacking even the most basic literacy and numeracy skills. Failure to tackle the learning deficit will deprive a whole generation of opportunities to develop their potential and escape poverty. And it will undermine prospect for dynamic growth with shared prosperity.

If you want a glimpse into Africa’s education crisis there is no better vantage point than the town of Bodinga, located in the impoverished Savannah region of Sokoto state in northwestern Nigeria. Drop into one of the local primary schools and you’ll typically find more than 50 students crammed into a class. Just a few will have textbooks. If the teacher is there, and they are often absent, the children will be on the receiving end of a monotone recitation geared towards rote learning.

Not that there is much learning going on. One recent survey found that 80 percent of Sokoto’s Grade 3 pupils cannot read a single word. They have gone through three years of zero value-added schooling. Mind you, the kids in the classrooms are the lucky ones, especially if they are girls. Over half of the state’s primary school-age children are out of school – and Sokoto has some of the world’s biggest gender gaps in education. Just a handful of the kids have any chance of making it through to secondary education.

The ultimate aim of any education system is to equip children with the numeracy, literacy and wider skills that they need to realize their potential – and that their countries need to generate jobs, innovation and economic growth.

Bodinga’s schools are a microcosm of a wider crisis in Africa’s education. After taking some rapid strides towards universal primary education after 2000, progress has stalled. Out-of-school numbers are on the rise – and the gulf in education opportunity separating Africa from the rest of the world is widening. That gulf is not just about enrollment and years in school, it is also about learning. The ultimate aim of any education system is to equip children with the numeracy, literacy and wider skills that they need to realize their potential – and that their countries need to generate jobs, innovation and economic growth. From South Korea to Singapore and China, economic success has been built on the foundations of learning achievement. And far too many of Africa’s children are not learning, even if they are in school.

The Center for Universal Education at Brookings/This is Africa Learning Barometer survey takes a hard look at the available evidence. In what is the first region-wide assessment of the state of learning, the survey estimates that 61 million children of primary school age – one-in-every-two across the region – will reach their adolescent years unable to read, write or perform basic numeracy tasks. Perhaps the most shocking finding, however, is that over half of these children will have spent at least four years in the education system.

Africa’s education crisis does not make media headlines. Children don’t go hungry for want of textbooks, good teachers and a chance to learn. But this is a crisis that carries high costs. It is consigning a whole generation of children and youth to a future of poverty, insecurity and unemployment. It is starving firms of the skills that are the life-blood of enterprise and innovation. And it is undermining prospects for sustained economic growth in the world’s poorest region.

Tackling the crisis in education will require national and international action on two fronts: Governments need to get children into school – and they need to ensure that children get something meaningful from their time in the classroom. Put differently, they need to close the twin deficit in access and learning.

School Enrollment – Good News and Bad News

The good news story on education in Africa is that out-of-school numbers have fallen dramatically over the past decade.

Primary school enrollment has increased from 58 percent to 76 percent, gender gaps are narrowing, and more kids are making it through to secondary school. Ten years ago, countries such as Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Mozambique and Senegal were treading water, or slipping backwards on enrollment. Now they are heading in the right direction. The elimination of school fees, increased investment in school infrastructure, and increased teacher recruitment have all contributed to the change.

The bad news comes in a double dose. There are still some 30 million primary school-age children out of school – one-in-every-four in the region – and progress towards universal primary education has stalled. Instead of hitting the Millennium Development Goal target of universal primary education by 2015, the out-of-school number could rise by 2 million.

Meanwhile, Africa has the world’s lowest secondary school enrollment rates. Just 28 percent of youth are enrolled in secondary school, leaving over 90 million teenagers struggling for employment in low-paid, informal sector jobs. Today, a child entering the education systems of an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) country has an 80 percent chance of receiving some form of tertiary education. The comparable figure for sub-Saharan Africa is 6 percent.

Why has progress on enrollment ground to a halt? Partly because governments are failing to extend opportunities to the region’s most marginalized children. Africa has some of the world’s starkest inequalities in access to education. Children from the richest 20 percent of households in Ghana average six more years in school than those from the poorest households. Being poor, rural and female carries a triple handicap. In northern Nigeria, Hausa girls in this category average less than one year in school, while wealthy urban males get nine years.

Conflict is another barrier to progress. Many of Africa’s out-of-school children are either living in conflict zones such as Somalia and eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, in camps for displaced people in their home country, or – like the tens of thousands of Somali children in Kenya – as refugees. Six years after the country’s peace agreement, South Sudan still has over 1 million children out of school.

The Learning Deficit

Just how much are Africa’s children learning in school? That is a surprisingly difficult question to answer. Few countries in the region participate in international learning assessments – and most governments collect learning data in a fairly haphazard fashion.

The Learning Barometer provides a window into Africa’s schools. Covering 28 countries, and 78 percent of the region’s primary school-age population, the survey draws on a range of regional and national assessments to identify the minimum learning thresholds for Grades 4 and 5 of primary school. Children below these thresholds are achieving scores that are so low as to call into question the value-added of their schooling. Most will be unable to read or write with any fluency, or to successfully complete basic numeracy tasks. Of course, success in school is about more than test scores.

It is also about building foundational skills in teamwork, supporting emotional development, and stimulating problem-solving skills. But learning achievement is a critical measure of education quality – and the Learning Barometer registers dangerously low levels of achievement.

The headline numbers tell their own story. Over one-third of pupils covered in the survey – 23 million children – fall below the minimum learning threshold. Because this figure is an average, it obscures the depth of the learning deficit in many countries. More than half of students in Grades 4 and 5 in countries such as Ethiopia, Nigeria and Zambia are below the minimum learning bar. In total, there are seven countries in which 40 percent or more of children are in this position. As a middle-income country, South Africa stands out. One-third of children fall below the learning threshold, reflecting the large number of failing schools in areas servicing predominantly low-income black and mixed race children.

Disparities in learning achievement mirror wider inequalities in education. In Mozambique and South Africa, children from the poorest households are seven times more likely than those from the richest households to rank in the lowest 10 percent of students.

Unfortunately, the bad news does not end here. Bear in mind that the Learning Barometer registers the score of children who are in school. Learning achievement levels among children who are out of school are almost certainly far lower – and an estimated 10 million children in Africa drop out each year. Consider the case of Malawi. Almost half of the children sitting in Grade 5 classrooms are unable to perform basic literacy and numeracy tasks. More alarming still is that half of the children who entered primary school have dropped out by this stage.

Adjusting the Learning Barometer to measure the learning achievement levels of children who are out of school, likely to drop out, and in school but not learning produces some distressing results. There are 127 million children of primary school age in Africa. In the absence of an urgent drive to raise standards, half of these children – 61 million in total – will reach adolescence without the basic learning skills that they, and their countries, desperately need to escape the gravitational pull of mass poverty.

What is Going Wrong?

Rising awareness of the scale of Africa’s learning crisis has turned the spotlight on schools, classrooms and teachers – and for good reason. Education systems across the region urgently need reform. But the problems begin long before children enter school in a lethal interaction between poverty, inequality and education disadvantage.

The early childhood years set many of Africa’s children on a course for failure in education. There is compelling international evidence that preschool malnutrition has profoundly damaging – and largely irreversible – consequences for the language, memory and motor skills that make effective learning possible and last throughout youth and adulthood. This year, 40 percent of Africa’s children will reach primary school-age having had their education opportunities blighted by hunger. Some two-thirds of the region’s preschool children suffer from anemia – another source of reduced learning achievement.

Parental illiteracy is another preschool barrier to learning. The vast majority of the 48 million children entering Africa’s schools over the past decade come from illiterate home environments. Lacking the early reading, language and numeracy skills that can provide a platform for learning, they struggle to make the transition to school – and their parents struggle to provide support with homework.

Gender roles can mean that young girls are removed from school to collect water or care for their siblings. Meanwhile, countries such as Niger, Chad and Mali have some of the world’s highest levels of child marriage – many girls become brides before they have finished primary school.

School systems in Africa are inevitably affected by the social and economic environments in which they operate. Household poverty forces many children out of school and into employment. Gender roles can mean that young girls are removed from school to collect water or care for their siblings. Meanwhile, countries such as Niger, Chad and Mali have some of the world’s highest levels of child marriage – many girls become brides before they have finished primary school.

None of this is to discount the weaknesses of the school system. Teaching is at the heart of the learning crisis. If you want to know why so many kids learn so little, reflect for a moment on what their teachers know. Studies in countries such as Lesotho, Mozambique and Uganda have found that fewer than half of teachers could score in the top band on a test designed for 12-year-olds. Meanwhile, many countries have epidemic levels of teacher absenteeism.

It is all too easy to blame Africa’s teachers for the crisis in education – but this misses the point. The region’s teachers are products of the systems in which they operate. Many have not received a decent quality education. They frequently lack detailed information about what their students are expected to learn and how their pupils are performing. Trained to deliver outmoded rote learning classes, they seldom receive the support and advice they need from more experienced teachers and education administrators on how to improve teaching. And they are often working for poverty-level wages in extremely harsh conditions.

Education policies compound the problem. As children from nonliterate homes enter school systems they urgently need help to master the basic literacy and numeracy skills that they will need to progress through the system. Unfortunately, classroom overcrowding is at its worst in the early grades – and the most qualified teachers are typically deployed at higher grades.

Public spending often reinforces disadvantage, with the most prosperous regions and best performing schools cornering the lion’s share of the budget. In Kenya, the arid and semi-arid northern counties are home to 9 percent of the country’s children but 21 percent of out-of-school children. Yet these counties receive half as much public spending on a per child basis as wealthier commercial farming counties.

Looking Ahead – Daunting Challenges, New Opportunities

The combined effects of restricted access to education and low learning achievement should be sounding alarm bells across Africa. Economic growth over the past decade has been built in large measure on a boom in exports of unprocessed commodities. Sustaining that growth will require entry into higher value-added areas of production and international trade – and quality education is the entry ticket. Stated bluntly, Africa cannot build economic success on failing education systems. And it will not generate the 45 million additional jobs needed for young people joining the labor force over the next decade if those systems are not fixed.

Daunting as the scale of the crisis in education may be, many of the solutions are within reach. Africa’s governments have to take the lead. Far more has to be done to reach the region’s most marginalized children. Providing parents with cash transfers and financial incentives to keep children – especially girls – in school can help to mitigate the effects of poverty. So can early childhood programs and targeted support to marginalized regions.

Africa also needs an education paradigm shift. Education planners have to look beyond counting the number of children sitting in classrooms and start to focus on learning. Teacher recruitment, training and support systems need to be overhauled to deliver effective classroom instruction. The allocation of financial resources and teachers to schools should be geared towards the improvement of standards and equalization of learning outcomes. And no country in Africa, however poor, can neglect the critical task of building effective national learning assessment systems.

Aid donors and the wider international community also have a role to play. Having promised much, they have for the most part delivered little – especially to countries affected by conflict. Development assistance levels for education in Africa have stagnated in recent years. The $1.8 billion provided in 2010 was less than one-quarter of what is required to close the region’s aid financing gap.

Unlike the health sector, where vaccinations and the global funds for AIDS have mobilized finance and unleashed a wave of innovative public-private partnerships, the education sector continues to attract limited interest. This could change with a decision by the U.N. secretary-general to launch a five-year initiative, Education First, aimed at forging a broad coalition for change across donors, governments, the business community and civil society.

There is much to celebrate in Africa’s social and economic progress over the past decade. But if the region is to build on the foundations that have been put in place, it has to stop the hemorrhage of skills, talent and human potential caused by the crisis in education. Africa’s children have a right to an education that offers them a better future – and they have a right to expect their leaders and the international community to get behind them.

Authors

Kevin Watkins

Image Source: © Joe Penney / Reuters

Foresight Africa: Top Priorities for the Continent in 2013

Tue, 18 Dec 2012 12:14:00 -0500

Africa starts 2013 with hope and optimism. Africa has dropped its mantle as a “doomed continent” and has weathered several global economic crises fairly well. Today, the continent is a land of opportunity both for Africans and international investors. Many now see the region as “emerging Africa” because of the positive changes that have taken place and continue to take place across the continent.

Africa has changed, moving from economic stagnation to above 5 percent GDP growth on average. The continent is now home to some of the fastest growing economies in the world: Ethiopia, Ghana, Mozambique and Tanzania. This growth has helped build a burgeoning middle class, which has created new markets for goods and services. Investors focused on tapping into these new markets in Africa are likely to find it easier to do business there than ever before as African governments are working to reduce transaction costs. In addition to growing consumer markets, African countries have discovered additional natural resources. If managed properly, these resources could help spur further economic growth and development for the region and improve the lives of millions.

Such an optimistic outlook for the continent means that African and global policymakers must get ahead of the challenges and opportunities for an important year of decision-making. Since 2010, the Brookings Africa Growth Initiative (AGI) has asked its scholars to assess the top priorities for Africa in the coming year. This year, AGI experts and colleagues have identified what they consider to be the key issues for 2013 and ways to leverage opportunities so that Africa can continue its “emerging” momentum. The following briefs in the Foresight Africa collection are meant to create a dialogue on what matters in Africa for 2013, and it is our hope that this dialogue will continue through the year.

Download the full 2013 Foresight Africa report »

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Image Source: © Joe Penney / Reuters

Narrowing Africa's Education Deficit

Kevin Watkins — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 16:50:00 -0500

Editor's Note: This chapter is part of the 2013 Foresight Africa full report, which details the top priorities for Africa in the coming year. Read the full report here.

Despite some recent gains, sub-Saharan Africa is experiencing a two-pronged education crisis of quality and access. Thirty million primary school-age children in Africa—one in every four—are out of school, and a growing number of African students are unable to read a simple sentence or successfully complete basic math.

Kevin Watkins examines this twin deficit in African education and offers policy recommendations to African governments. Watkins also calls for prioritizing education as a top-tier issue, improving teacher training and support, increasing attention to early childhood development, addressing inequalities in educational systems that are marginalizing the poor and girls, and increasing involvement of international donors.

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Authors

Kevin Watkins

Image Source: © James Akena / Reuters

Education and the Post-2015 Development Agenda

Wed, 05 Dec 2012 12:30:00 -0500

Event Information

December 5, 2012
12:30 PM - 5:30 PM EST

Falk Auditorium
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20036

As the 2015 expiration date for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) approaches, the goal of achieving universal access to primary education is unlikely to be realized. Worldwide, 61 million children still do not have access to primary school and millions more are in school but not learning basic skills. In response, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon launched a five-year global education initiative, Education First, at the U.N. General Assembly this September, calling on local governments and the international community to prioritize quality education leading up to and following 2015.

On December 5, the Center for Universal Education at Brookings hosted a discussion on the role of education in the post-2015 development agenda. Building on the launch of Education First, the panelists discussed how to reach the remaining children with no access to school, and improve the quality and relevancy of education for all children and youth.

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Keynote Address: Education and the Post-2015 Development Agenda

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Financing for a Fairer, More Prosperous Kenya: A Review of the Public Spending Challenges and Options for Selected Arid and Semi-Arid Counties

Kevin Watkins and Woubedle Alemayehu — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 13:06:00 -0400

INTRODUCTION

In August, 2010 the government of Kenya adopted a new constitution. This followed a referendum in which an overwhelming majority of Kenyans voted for change. The decisive impetus for reform came from the widespread violence and political crisis that followed the 2007 election. While claims of electoral fraud provided the immediate catalyst for violence, the deeper causes were to be found in the interaction of a highly centralized ‘winner-take-all’ political system with deep social disparities based in part on group identity (Hanson 2008).

Provisions for equity figure prominently in the new constitution. Backed by a bill of rights that opens the door to legal enforcement, citizenship rights have been strengthened in many areas,including access to basic services. ‘Equitable sharing’ has been introduced as a guiding principle for public spending. National and devolved governments are now constitutionally required to redress social disparities, target disadvantaged areas and provide affirmative action for marginalized groups.

Translating these provisions into tangible outcomes will not be straightforward. Equity is a principle that would be readily endorsed by most policymakers in Kenya and Kenya’s citizens have provided their own endorsement through the referendum. However, there is an ongoing debate over what the commitment to equity means in practice, as well as over the pace and direction of reform. Much of that debate has centered on the constitutional injunction requiring ‘equitable sharing’ in public spending.

On most measures of human development, Kenya registers average outcomes considerably above those for sub-Saharan Africa as a region. Yet the national average masks extreme disparities—and the benefits of increased prosperity have been unequally shared.

There are compelling grounds for a strengthened focus on equity in Kenya. In recent years, the country has maintained a respectable, if less than spectacular, record on economic growth. Social indicators are also on an upward trend. On most measures of human development, Kenya registers average outcomes considerably above those for sub-Saharan Africa as a region. Yet the national average masks extreme disparities—and the benefits of increased prosperity have been unequally shared. Some regions and social groups face levels of deprivation that rank alongside the worst in Africa. Moreover, the deep fault lines running through society are widely perceived as a source of injustice and potential political instability.

High levels of inequality in Kenya raise wider concerns. There has been a tendency in domestic debates to see ‘equitable sharing’ as a guiding principle for social justice, rather than as a condition for accelerated growth and enhanced economic efficiency. Yet international evidence strongly suggests that extreme inequality—especially in opportunities for education— is profoundly damaging for economic growth. It follows that redistributive public spending has the potential to support growth.

The current paper focuses on a group of 12 counties located in Kenya’s Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASALs). They are among the most disadvantaged in the country. Most are characterized by high levels of income poverty, chronic food insecurity and acute deprivation across a wide range of social indicators.

Nowhere is the deprivation starker than in education. The ASAL counties account for a disproportionately large share of Kenya’s out-of-school children, pointing to problems in access and school retention. Gender disparities in education are among the widest in the country. Learning outcomes for the small number of children who get through primary school are for the most part abysmal, even by the generally low national average standards.

Unequal public spending patterns have played no small part in creating the disparities that separate the ASAL counties from the rest of Kenya—and ‘equitable sharing’ could play a role in closing the gap. But what would a more equitable approach to public spending look like in practice?

This paper addresses that question. It looks in some detail at education for two reasons. First, good quality education is itself a powerful motor of enhanced equity. It has the potential to equip children and youth with the skills and competencies that they need to break out of cycles of poverty and to participate more fully in national prosperity. If Kenya is to embark on a more equitable pattern of development, there are strong grounds for prioritizing the creation of more equal opportunities in education. Second, the education sector illustrates many of the wider challenges and debates that Kenya’s policymakers will have to address as they seek to translate constitutional provisions into public spending strategies. In particular, it highlights the importance of weighting for indicators that reflect need in designing formulae for budget allocations.

Our broad conclusion is that, while Kenya clearly needs to avoid public spending reforms that jeopardize service delivery in wealthier counties, redistributive measures are justified on the grounds of efficiency and equity.

The paper is organized as follows. Part 1 provides an overview of the approach to equity enshrined in the constitution. While the spirit of the constitution is unequivocal, the letter is open to a vast array of interpretations. We briefly explore the implications of a range of approaches. Our broad conclusion is that, while Kenya clearly needs to avoid public spending reforms that jeopardize service delivery in wealthier counties, redistributive measures are justified on the grounds of efficiency and equity. Although this paper focuses principally on basic services, we caution against approaches that treat equity as a matter of social sector financing to the exclusion of growth-oriented productive investment.

Part 2 provides an analysis of some key indicators on poverty, health and nutrition. Drawing on household expenditure data, the report locates the 12 ASAL counties in the national league table for the incidence and depth of poverty. Data on health outcomes and access to basic services provide another indicator of the state of human development. While there are some marked variations across counties and indicators, most of the 12 counties register levels of deprivation in poverty and basic health far in excess of those found in other areas.

Part 3 shifts the focus to education. Over the past decade, Kenya has made considerable progress in improving access to basic education. Enrollment rates in primary education have increased sharply since the elimination of school fees in 2003. Transition rates to secondary school are also rising. The record on learning achievement is less impressive. While Kenya lacks a comprehensive national learning assessment, survey evidence points to systemic problems in education quality. In both access and learning, children in the ASAL counties—especially female children—are at a considerable disadvantage. After setting out the national picture, the paper explores the distinctive problems facing these counties.

In Part 4 we look beyond Kenya to wider international experience. Many countries have grappled with the challenge of reducing disparities between less-favored and more-favored regions. There are no blueprints on offer. However, there are some useful lessons and guidelines that may be of some relevance to the policy debate in Kenya. The experience of South Africa may be particularly instructive given the weight attached to equity in the post-apartheid constitution.

Part 5 of the paper explores a range of approaches to financial allocations. Converting constitutional principle into operational practice will require the development of formulae-based approaches. From an equitable financing perspective there is no perfect model. Any formula that is adopted will involve trade-offs between different goals. Policymakers have to determine what weight to attach to different dimensions of equity (for example, gender, income, education and health), the time frame for achieving stated policy goals, and whether to frame targets in terms of outcomes or inputs. These questions go beyond devolved financing. The Kenyan constitution is unequivocal in stipulating that the ‘equitable sharing’ provision applies to all public spending. We therefore undertake a series of formula-based exercises illustrating the allocation patterns that would emerge under different formulae, with specific reference to the 12 ASAL focus counties and to education.

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Authors

Kevin Watkins
Woubedle Alemayehu

Image Source: © Thomas Mukoya / Reuters

Africa Learning Barometer

Justin W. van Fleet, Kevin Watkins and Lauren Greubel — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 09:42:00 -0400

The Africa Learning Barometer is the first region-wide survey of learning and education covering 28 sub-Saharan African countries. It estimates that 61 million children of primary school age – 1 out of every 2 kids – will reach their adolescent years unable to read, write, or perform basic numeracy tasks.

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Technical Appendix

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Financing for a Fairer, More Prosperous Kenya

Kevin Watkins — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0400

Most governments around the world would declare their adherence to the principles of fairness and equity. But how should principles inform practical policies for allocating public spending? That question was at the heart of a two-day seminar held last week in Naivasha, Kenya.

Organised jointly by the Office of the Prime Minister, the Ministry of State for Development of Northern Kenya and other Arid lands, and the Commission on Revenue Allocation (CRA), and facilitated by the United Nation’s Millennium Campaign, the Naivasha seminar, Financing for a Fairer, Prosperous Kenya, addressed an ongoing public debate prompted by the adoption of a new constitution in 2010. The outcome of that debate will have profound consequences for poverty reduction in Kenya – and the issues raised have a resonance far beyond Kenya’s borders.

Adopted in 2010, the Kenyan constitution is a remarkable document. It shifts the locus of political authority away from what has been a highly centralized state toward 47 devolved counties. It enshrines far-reaching provisions on social and economic rights, including a new bill of rights. And it includes an injunction requiring all layers of government to apply the principle of “equitable sharing” to public spending, with an emphasis on “the need for affirmative action in respect of disadvantaged groups and areas.”

There are compelling grounds for policymakers in Kenya to prioritize greater equity. Wealth disparities are marked. The Gini co-efficient for wealth distribution is 0.44, which is higher than in neighboring countries like Ethiopia and Tanzania. Economic growth has been skewed toward urban centers and a narrow band of commercial farming areas, with the World Bank estimating that 80 percent of economic activity is generated in just half of the new counties.

While Kenya’s social indicators have been improving, national averages obscure deep sub-national fault-lines. Child mortality rates among the poorest 20 percent of households are twice as high as those among the richest 20 percent. Young adults from the poorest quintile have five years less schooling than those from the wealthiest households.

Intersecting with these wealth-based disparities are some of Africa’s starkest horizontal disparities. In a report prepared at the request of the Ministry for Northern Kenya and presented at the Naivasha seminar, the Brookings Center for Universal Education looked at social indicators for 12 of the Arid and Semi-Arid Land (ASAL) counties. Among the key findings:

Poverty incidence in counties such as Marsabit, Wajir, Mandera and Turkana exceeds 80 percent – double the national average. Apart from being more pervasive, poverty is also far deeper.
The 12 counties account for just over 20 percent of Kenya’s primary school age population, but almost half of the out-of-school population. They account for 9 of the bottom 10 counties in the national league table for enrollment.
Gender gaps in education are among the widest in Kenya both in terms of access, progression through schools and test scores. In some of the ASAL counties, there are twice as many boys as girls in secondary school. Those (very few) girls who make it through the education system to take the secondary school exam are half as likely as boys to achieve the grade required to secure state funding for higher education.
Health service coverage is limited. Just 5-6 percent of births reported in Wajir and Turkana are attended by skilled health workers, compared to a national average figure of over 30 percent.

Some current public spending practices reinforce, rather than mitigate, these disparities. Consider the case of primary education, as illustrated by two simple figures. Figure I provides a snapshot of the share of each of Kenya’s counties in the total primary school age population, and the share of that population which is out of school. The 12 ASAL counties covered in the Brookings report are demarked by red dots. All but one is to the left of the “line of equivalence” – the point at which the county’s out-of-school share is equivalent to its share of the school population. For example, Turkana accounts for just over 2 percent of the school age population, but 9 percent of the out-of-school population. This is a stark illustration of the unequal life-chances facing children n many of the ASAL counties.

Given the level of education disadvantage facing children in the ASAL counties, an equitable system of public spending might be expected to transfer more per pupil than to other counties. In the case of Kenya, the inverse principle applies. Figure 2 measures the ratio of public spending received by each county against the county’s share of school-age children (equivalence is demarked by a ratio of 1). The ASAL counties (green columns) receive less than they would if the budget were allocated as an equivalent transfer for each child – in some cases, much less. Thus, budget transfers to Turkana are less than half of the level that would take place on the basis of equivalent transfers per child. The reason for the disparity: transfers are determined by the number of children in school, penalizing those counties with low school participation rates. Put differently, those with the greatest need get the smallest slice of the budget cake.

The new constitution marks a bold attempt to set Kenya on a course toward a more equal society. Prompted in part by the wave of violence that followed the 2008 election, its provisions reflect a broad public concern that the deep social fault lines running through Kenyan society are a source not just of social injustice, but of political instability and economic inefficiency. The CRA has been charged with translating constitutional principles in favor of greater equity into concrete policies for allocating government revenue.

That is no easy task. The CRA’s remit extends not just to the 15 percent of government revenue that will be allocated directly to the new counties, and to the design of a new Equalization Fund (0.5 percent of revenue), but to all public spending. Reaching a broad consensus in favor of “equitable sharing” is one thing. It is quite another successfully to navigate the political process through which public spending is allocated across counties, social groups and sectors.

The Naivasha conference explored a range of international approaches to equity in public finance. One particularly instructive case-study, presented by Pinaki Chakraborty of the National Institute for Public Finance and Policy in New Delhi, focused on India. This country has a highly devolved system of public finance, with around one-third of federal government revenue allocated to states. The allocation is governed by a horizontal distribution formula which takes into account the fiscal capacity of each state (their ability to raise revenue), population, land area and other factors. Broadly, the formula aims at narrowing fiscal inequality between richer and poor states, and at equalizing capacity to deliver basic services.

Wider experiences are also relevant to the debate in Kenya. In South Africa, public financing has sought to narrow the extreme disparities associated with the legacy of apartheid, in part through a Provincial Equitable Share formula that allocates additional resources to devolved governments in regions with large populations facing disadvantages in health and education. Fiscal devolution in Ethiopia is governed through a formula that measures fiscal capacity against the estimated costs of achieving specific policy targets, in some cases geared toward the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

While international experience is instructive Kenya clearly needs to chart its own course towards ‘equitable sharing’. The country is on a distinctive pathway. While political authority is being devolved to the counties, revenue mobilization will remain highly centralized (a marked contrast to the situation in large federal countries like India and Brazil). Some major sectors will not be devolved, including education. And while there has been an extensive debate over how to weight different types of inequality, the data available is often dated, unreliable and contested.

The CRA has made some initial proposals. In a framework submitted to parliament in May, it outline a formula for devolved financing that would allocate 60 percent of the budget on the basis of population size, 20 percent as an “equal share” to every county, 12 percent in the form of an equal payment for every person living below the poverty line, with residual transfers linked to land area and fiscal performance. Intended to generate a public debate, the formula is now under revision.

Proposals set out in a forthcoming Brookings Center for Universal Education paper advocate five core reforms to the current framework:

Attach more weight to equity: The 2010 constitution is unequivocal in demanding that public spending plays a greater role in mitigating disadvantage. While income poverty is a partial indicator of disadvantage, it should carry a weighting of 30-50 percent in the devolved financing formula. One of the weaknesses of the CRA’s approach to date has been in the undue weight attached to population and equal per capita transfers. Providing an equal payment for people and counties in very unequal positions is not compatible with the constitution’s equitable sharing provisions.
Focus on the poverty gap: The current formula envisages equal transfers to each poor person, irrespective of their distance from the poverty line. In the Brookings paper, we advocate for an approach that weights each county’s share in the national poverty gap – and approach that would capture the depth of poverty and, by extension, the costs of eliminating poverty.
Look beyond devolved financing: Much of the debate in Kenya has focused on the devolved budgets, to the exclusion of the 85 percent of public spending that will remain under the control of central government.
Identify equitable financing approaches for each sector, starting with education. As the major non-devolved basic service budget, education is a test case. Kenya urgently needs to move away from the current “equal finance for each pupil” model and toward “an equal chance for every child” approach. The Brookings paper explores a number of options and calls for an approach that would allocate spending through the following formula; 50 percent for children in school, 20 percent for children out of school, 20 percent on the basis of the county share in the national poverty gap, with residual transfers linked to gender equity and a special fund for the most disadvantaged ASAL counties.
Develop a cost-based citizenship entitlement framework: The 2010 constitution enshrines a number of citizenship rights to basic services. If these rights and entitlements are to be translated into real entitlements, government needs to establish the costs of provision and to allocate resources against these costs.

The debate on public spending prompted by the new constitution provides Kenya with a real opportunity to accelerate human development. Current levels of inequality are a source of social injustice, political instability and economic inefficiency, with disparities in opportunity acting as a drag on growth. As the recent history of Brazil has demonstrated, strategies that are good for equity and the development of more inclusive societies can also be good for growth. The converse also holds true.

It is hard to overstate the importance of the fiscal framework for devolved financing in Kenya. Much will depend on political leadership. The CRA is staffed by highly competent professionals. Ultimately, though, it is a technical advisory body set up to recommend on options. So far, political leaders have been content to take a back seat. They have steadfastly avoided engaging the public in a wider debate on the case for greater equity, preferring to delegate responsibility to the CRA without establishing clear guidelines.

If Kenya is to translate the bold new principles of the constitution into policies that expand opportunities for the country’s most disadvantage people and marginalized counties, political leaders will need to abandon the back seat and provide real leadership. The wider challenge for Kenya’s elite is to recognize that the real threat to the country’s future is not from an imagined trade-off between economic growth and equity, but from a continued indifference to the inequalities that are destroying so much human potential, hampering productivity and fuelling social division.

Authors

Kevin Watkins

One Year After South Sudan's Independence: Opportunities and Obstacles for Africa's Newest Country

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 11:42:00 -0400

On July 9, 2012, South Sudan will celebrate its first anniversary as an independent and sovereign state. The January 2011 referendum effectively ended the prolonged, violent confrontation between the Republic of Sudan and the territories that would ultimately gain independence as South Sudan. This development marked an important stage in the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). In addition to regulating relations between the two feuding parties from 2005 to 2011, the CPA also implemented the framework for the creation of two separate nations. Despite the success of the CPA in guiding South Sudan’s path to independence, the young nation must now address a myriad of challenges related to its domestic policies as well as continued hostilities with the Republic of Sudan.

As international observers applauded the CPA’s success, the people of South Sudan also celebrated the birth of their nation with high expectations. Independence brought with it hope for a better future and the opportunity to build a united developmental state. Revenue from valuable oil resources, which were a primary source of the conflict between the two nations, gave South Sudan the opportunity to invest in the development of its natural and human resources. Additionally, formal separation was expected to end the long-standing conflict with the Republic of Sudan. However, these expectations were tempered by the many restraints that came with establishing conditions for sustained economic growth and improving the delivery of public goods and services.

After many years of brutal civil war, South Sudan emerged with extremely poor infrastructure and a population with limited human capital. More importantly, the country was born with weak institutions that were not suited to the delivery of sustainable economic growth and development. Finally, while the people of South Sudan were largely united in the war against Khartoum, the country is to a large degree ethnically fragmented, with each group seeking to maximize its own objectives—a process that has significantly weakened the ability of the government to work toward national integration.

South Sudan’s first year of independence has been fraught with major challenges, like the continuing struggle with the Republic of Sudan over their common border. These conflicts have become top priorities for the country, impeding the ability of the government to concentrate on economic growth and human development.

The Africa Growth Initiative (AGI) at the Brookings Institution has been following developments in South Sudan in order to offer independent policy proposals that can translate into sustainable economic growth and development, effective delivery of public services, and the building of institutions for a united and peaceful nation. This collection of policy briefs seeks to highlight some of the important issues that have affected South Sudan during the country’s first year of independence and identify policy areas that both South Sudan and the international community must emphasize in order to enhance the nation’s ability to achieve peace, economic growth and human development. It is important to note that many of the policy recommendations offered by the various briefs are similar even though each brief was based on independent analysis. This is due primarily to the fact that many of the issues faced by South Sudan lend themselves to similar solutions.

Image Source: © Adriane Ohanesian / Reuters

Basic Services in South Sudan

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 11:42:00 -0400

Kevin Watkins from Brookings Center for Universal Education examines service delivery in the country since independence and makes recommendations on how the Government of South Sudan One Year After Independence: Opportunities and Obstacles for Africa’s Newest Country South Sudan (GoSS) can make sure that it provides its citizens with the services that they need to ensure continued improvements in human development. He cautions that delays in human development, most of which are likely to come from either poor or opportunistic provisions, have extremely high costs.

Publication: One Year After South Sudan's Independence: Opportunities and Obstacles for Africa's Newest Country

The Africa Progress Panel Report—Jobs, Justice and Equity for Africa

Kevin Watkins — Mon, 14 May 2012 10:48:00 -0400

In the bullish environment at last week’s World Economic Forum (WEF) on Africa in Addis Ababa, the launch of the Africa Progress Panel report stood out as an island of balanced reflection and cautious optimism.

Chaired by the former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, the Africa Progress Panel (APP) includes leaders from government, business and civil society. This year’s report, focused on jobs, justice and equity. The panel takes a long, hard look at Africa’s recent record on economic growth, democracy and governance. It provides a hefty dose of good news. More than any other region, Africa’s economies have demonstrated great resilience in withstanding the worst effects of the global recession. The WEF host country, Ethiopia, has been posting higher growth rates than China; Mozambique has been out-performing India. Over 70 percent of the region’s population lives in countries growing in excess of 4 percent a year.

The record on democracy and governance is also encouraging. Multi-party democracy has emerged intact from disputed elections in Cote d’Ivoire and Senegal. Several governments have moved to strengthen anti-corruption measures. And budget transparency is improving.

Set against the positives, the APP does not pull its punches on the downside of the progress report. Launching the report, Kofi Annan told a crowded room of journalists that African governments were failing to tackle what he described as “ethically indefensible and economically inefficient” inequalities. “Disparities in basic life chances – for health, education and participation in society – are preventing millions of Africans from realizing their potential, holding back social and economic progress in the process,” Mr. Annan said.

While the talk in the WEF corridors has been all about the investment opportunities created by growth, the expansion of the middle class and commercial agriculture, the APP turns the spotlight on issues that are conspicuously absent from the wider WEF agenda. It warns that much of the economic growth of the past decade has been jobless, raising the specter of rising youth unemployment. The report cautions that restricted access to education and low levels of learning achievement are reinforcing social disparities and hampering employment creation. And, citing data from research at Brookings, it says that claims made about the growth of an African middle class have been exaggerated.

Taking up a theme that NGOs like Oxfam have addressed, the report also urges African governments to draw a sharper distinction between productive foreign investment in agriculture and what Mr. Annan and his co-panelist and celebrity activist, Bob Geldof, described as speculative land grabs. The report warns that failure to prioritize smallholder agriculture will leave millions of Africans trapped in a cycle of poverty and food insecurity.

Looking ahead, the report calls for a renewed focus on equity and jobs creation, with education placed at the center of national strategies, referencing the Center for Universal Education’s call for African governments to strengthen the quality of education as part of the wider Global Compact on Learning. The panel also called on the international community to create an independent multilateral fund to support education— an approach that he said would draw on the lessons of the global health fund.

Authors

Kevin Watkins

Image Source: Reuters

What Focusing on Drones and Detention Misses

Kevin Watkins and Rebecca Winthrop — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 15:50:00 -0400

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Editor's Note: For Campaign 2012, Benjamin Wittes and Daniel Byman wrote a policy brief proposing ideas for the next president on America’s counterterrorism efforts. The following paper is a response to Wittes and Byman’s piece from Rebecca Winthrop and Kevin Watkins. Stephen Grand also prepared a response arguing that the next president must seize the Arab Spring as a historic opportunity to prove to the region that the United States is a meaningful and trustworthy partner.

Our concern with the points Benjamin Wittes and Daniel Byman make is less about what is said than about what is omitted. The authors tout the great success of counterinsurgency strikes, while turning a blind eye to the very real human costs—namely civilian casualties from “targeting errors”—associated with the use of drones. These errors not only result in the loss of life but also breed animosity toward the United States among the civilian population. Unfortunately, Wittes and Byman view counterterrorism through a very narrow prism that leads them to focus almost entirely on traditional security themes, such as preemptive strikes, the targeting of leaders, and emergency legal powers. They fail to consider the wider forces fueling international terrorism. Extreme poverty, youth unemployment, and limited opportunities for education plague countries such as Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia—and even more those that have homegrown terrorist groups with embryonic links to al Qaeda, such as Nigeria and Mali. Of course, there is no simple correlation between poverty and terrorism. But it is perilous to ignore the interaction that does exist.

It is well to recall that the 9/11 Commission report recognized the need to put development at the center of the counterterrorism agenda. The report therefore recommended that the U.S. government “offer an agenda of opportunity that includes support for public education.” Recent detailed reviews of the relationship between U.S. national security, weak states, and global poverty clearly demonstrate numerous ways in which poor governance and extreme poverty, particularly when interacting with specific political and cultural phenomena, can create favorable conditions for terrorist networks to flourish in. As President Obama observed in a 2010 speech, “Extremely poor societies . . . provide optimal breeding grounds for disease, terrorism and conflict.”

True, most high-profile terrorist leaders associated with al Qaeda are middle-class and well-educated individuals. The would-be Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahad, boasts of having an MBA. Yet the sense of hopelessness, despair, and thwarted ambition that comes with poor governance, mass poverty, and youth unemployment creates a political environment conducive to the rise of terrorist groups. Weak states—particularly those with some level of functioning government, resources, and connections to the outside world—provide safe havens from which violent extremists can smuggle and procure needed goods and services, raise and manage funds, and build networks. Limited economic opportunities and education often lead the general population to support or passively accept extremists in their midst, thus making it that much easier for them to carry on their work. It is easy to forget that for every highly skilled and politically motivated leader or successful suicide bomber, there are many others that make terrorist networks function: drivers, messengers, housekeepers, and lookouts. These people are often more easily recruited than the bombers because of their limited chances in life. Investing in their well-being, through economic assistance and support for strengthening government capacity, is an important strategy for sustainably reducing violent extremism.

Yemen is a classic example of the shortcomings of focusing counterterrorism efforts solely on exercises such as intercepting terror leaders and bombers. After the 2000 attack on the USS Cole, initial efforts by the United States entailed what Wittes and Byman would describe as a highly effective antiterrorism operation. Leaders were captured, networks weakened, and terror plots were stymied. Nevertheless, Yemen is again at the forefront of global terrorism. Poverty, mass unemployment, and some of the world’s worst education indicators, coupled with a sense of frustration over Western support for a regime seen as corrupt, antidemocratic, and ineffective, make Yemen a highly conducive environment for violent extremists hostile to the United States.

Or consider the case of Pakistan. This is one of the world’s youngest countries. Half of its 178 million people are under the age of seventeen. Its public education system might politely be described as underperforming. Over one-third of children of primary school age are not in school. Only a minority make it to secondary school, where enrolment rates are just 49 percent for boys and 37 percent for girls. To make matters worse, the likelihood of unemployment rises with the level of education because of the weak link between the skills young people acquire in school and the skills demanded in labor markets. It is difficult to counter terrorism effectively in the absence of a strategy that gives the country’s youth hope of a better future.

The same logic holds in Somalia. Here the ongoing conflict has virtually destroyed the public education system, making it impossible for young people to get a decent education. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates that from 2005 to 2009 only about a quarter of Somalia’s school-aged children attended primary school, and only about 9 percent of boys and 5 percent of females attended secondary school. Hundreds of thousands of Somali children are now living in refugee camps in neighboring Kenya. Very little provision has been made for the education of this surging refugee population. Meanwhile, mothers in Dadaab, the largest refugee camp, are openly concerned about their children being targeted for recruitment by al Shabab.

To reiterate, the next administration needs to put poverty, including strategies for positive youth development, at the center of the wider national security agenda. This does not mean dispensing with the very important moral and economic rationales that motivate humanitarian and development aid to a wide range of countries, including those that currently have a limited connection with terrorism. But it does mean that development assistance must be deployed in a way that helps mitigate the underlying causes that give rise to violent extremism.

The Obama administration, through such endeavors as the National Security Strategy and the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, has offered a vision of national security that connects the dots between defense and development and presses for “conflict-sensitive” aid strategies. Against this backdrop, the next U.S. president should play a global leadership role in advancing the global agenda not just for getting all children into school, but also for raising learning achievement levels and strengthening the linkages between education and employment. The Obama administration has fallen short on its leadership in the education sector. Quality education and training programs that build skills relevant to labor markets and to coexisting in a globalized world are essential to engage youth constructively. In particular, such programs should strengthen both the U.S. and international aid systems for delivering education of a decent quality to children and youth in countries affected by violent conflict. That means working both internally and with partners to increase the share of humanitarian aid directed to education (currently less than 2 percent of the total), while at the same time delivering increased and more effective aid to refugees, internally displaced people, and countries embarking on postconflict reconstruction. To this end, it will be necessary to work with Congress to maintain sufficient resources for foreign assistance in this age of austerity. Reforms will also be needed to make foreign aid more effective and cost-efficient, for example, by consolidating and streamlining America’s development system and ensuring that all foreign assistance programs employ conflict-sensitive approaches.

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What Focusing on Drones and Detention Misses

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The Power of Circumstance: A New Approach to Measuring Education Inequality

Kevin Watkins — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 11:12:00 -0500

INTRODUCTION

In recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in the issue of inequality. Part of this resurgence can be traced to new evidence of persistent and widening wealth gaps. Average incomes may be converging globally as a result of high growth in emerging markets, stronger growth in many poor countries, and slow growth in rich countries. However, the evidence also shows that within countries a parallel process of income divergence, marginalization and rising inequality is also taking place. Put differently, the rising tide of global prosperity is not lifting all boats.

Much of the international debate on inequality focuses on the distribution of income across and within countries. Other dimensions of inequality have received less attention. This is unfortunate. Amartya Sen has described development as “a process of expanding the real freedoms that people enjoy” by building human capabilities or their capacity to lead the kind of life they value. Income is a means to that end but it is a limited indicator of well-being. Moreover, a person’s income reflects not just personal choice but also their opportunities for improving health, literacy, political participation and other areas. Education is one of the most basic building blocks for the “real freedoms” that Sen describes. People denied the chance to develop their potential through education face diminished prospects and more limited opportunities in areas ranging from health and nutrition, to employment, and participation in political processes. In other words, disparities in education are powerfully connected to wider disparities, including international and intra-country income inequalities. This is why education has been identified as one of the most critical factors in breaking down the disadvantages and social inequalities that are limiting progress toward the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)—development targets adopted by the international community for 2015.

Understanding patterns of educational inequality is critical at many levels. Ethical considerations are of paramount importance. Most people would accept that children’s educational achievements should not be dictated by the wealth of their parents, their gender, their race or their ethnicity. Disparities in educational opportunities are not just inequalities in a technical sense, they are also fundamental in equities—they are unjust and unfair. In an influential paper, John Roemer differentiated between inequalities that reflect factors such as luck, effort and reasonable reward, and those attributable to circumstances that limit opportunity (Roemer 1988).1 While the dividing line may often be blurred, that distinction has an intuitive appeal. Most people have a high level of aversion to the restrictions on what people—especially children—are able to achieve as a result of disparities and inherited disadvantages that limit access to education, nutrition or health care (Wagstaff, 2002). There is a wide body of opinion across political science, philosophy and economics that equal opportunity—as distinct from equality of outcomes—is a benchmark of egalitarian social justice. The theories of distributive justice associated with thinkers such as Amartya Sen, John Rawls, Ronald Dworkin and John Roemer argue, admittedly from very different perspectives, that public policy should aim at equalizing opportunity to counteract disadvantages associated with exogenous circumstances over which individuals or social groups have no control. Given the role of education as a potential leveler of opportunity, it is a national focal point for redistributive social justice.

Considerations of economic efficiency reinforce the ethical case for equalizing educational opportunities. Education is a powerful driver of productivity, economic growth, and innovation. Econometric modeling for both rich and poor countries suggests that an increase in learning achievement (as measured by test score data) of one standard deviation is associated on average with an increase in the long-run growth rate of around 2 percent per capita annually (Hanushek and Wößmann, 2010; Hanushek, 2009; Hanushek and Wößmann, 2008). Such evidence points to the critical role of education and learning in developing a skilled workforce. Countries in which large sections of the population are denied a quality education because of factors linked to potential wealth, gender, ethnicity, language and other markers for disadvantage are not just limiting a fundamental human right. They are also wasting a productive resource and undermining or weakening the human capital of the economy.

International development commitments provide another rationale for equalizing educational opportunities. This is for two reasons. First, the commitments envisage education for all and achievement of universal primary education by 2015. Second, there is mounting evidence that inequality is acting as a brake on progress toward the 2015 goals. Since around 2005, the rate of decline in the out-of-school population has slowed dramatically. Based on current trends, there may be more children out of school in 2015 than there were in 2009. Caution has to be exercised in interpreting short-run trends, especially given the weakness of data. However, the past three editions of the UNESCO Education for All Global Monitoring Report (GMR) have highlighted the role of inequality in contributing to the slowdown with governments struggling to reach populations that face deeply entrenched disadvantages (UNESCO, 2008, 2010, 2011). Therefore, picking up the pace toward the 2015 goals requires a strengthened focus on equity and strategies that target the most marginalized groups and regions of the world (Sumner and Tiwari, 2010; UN-DESA, 2009; UNESCO, 2010). It should be added that disparities in education relate not just to access, but also to learning achievement levels.

Accelerated progress in education would generate wider benefits for the MDGs. Most of the world’s poorest countries are off-track for the 2015 MDG target of halving income poverty and a long way from reaching the targets on child survival, maternal health and nutrition. Changing this picture will require policy interventions at many levels. However, there is overwhelming evidence showing that education—especially of young girls and women—can act as a potent catalyst for change. On one estimate, if all of sub-Saharan Africa’s mothers attained at least some secondary education, there would be 1.8 million fewer child deaths in the region each year. Thus while education may lack the “quick fix” appeal of vaccinations, it can powerfully reinforce health policy interventions.

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Kevin Watkins

Corporate Philanthropy and the "Education For All" Agenda

Kevin Watkins — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 16:57:00 -0500

INTRODUCTION

There is no shortage of candidates for inclusion in a list of challenges facing humanity at the start of the twenty-first century. Over the past two decades, globalisation has contributed to impressive gains in poverty reduction. Yet we live in a world of unprecedented disparities in wealth. Progress towards the international development goals in areas such as poverty reduction, nutrition, child survival and maternal health has fallen far short of the targets set for 2015, even in many of the countries that have secured high economic growth. Youth unemployment has reached record levels. While global economic integration and the spread of technology, capital and ideas have increased prosperity, growth has been uneven and unbalanced. Building a new globalisation will require not just new mechanisms for curtailing the power of financial markets, but also a more equitable pattern of economic growth and a new approach to ecology. Climate change and the growing body of evidence on environmental stress point unequivocally towards an economic system that has overstepped the ecological boundaries, with potentially devastating consequences for future generations.

So why put education on an already overcrowded agenda? Partly because education is a fundamental human right, but also because without progress in education any attempt to address the wider challenges facing governments around the world will be in vain. In an increasingly knowledge-based world economy, deep disparities between nations in education will reinforce an unequal and unsustainable pattern of globalisation. Education inequalities within countries will similarly reinforce social and economic fault lines. And without improved education there is little prospect of humanity confronting the technological and social challenges posed by the global ecological crisis.

Read the full paper at The Bellagio Initiative »

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Kevin Watkins

Publication: The Bellagio Initiative

Tackling the Challenges of Secondary Education

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 09:00:00 -0500

Event Information

December 6, 2011
9:00 AM - 11:00 AM EST

Root Room
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
1779 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC

Post-primary learning opportunities are essential for combating poverty and creating economic mobility, making secondary education the next great challenge for global education. The demand for secondary education around the world has grown as more children enter and progress through primary school. Additionally, secondary education links primary school to higher education, and connects school systems to labor markets. However, despite global progress in secondary enrollment, both access and quality remain major concerns.

On December 6, the Center for Universal Education at Brookings hosted a discussion on improving youth learning opportunities and outcomes, and the priority of secondary education in the global development agenda. Albert Motivans of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics provided an overview of the 2011 Global Education Digest: A Focus on Secondary Education. Sir John Daniel, president and CEO of Commonwealth Learning, and Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellow Kevin Watkins discussed the need to ensure education equity, meet the growing demand for qualified teachers, and solve financing challenges. Kavitha Cardoza, a senior reporter with WAMU 88.5 who covers education issues throughout the Washington, DC Metropolitan area, moderated the discussion.

After the discussion, participants took audience questions.

Audio

Tackling the Challenges of Secondary Education

Transcript

Event Materials

Participants

Moderator

Kavitha Cardoza

Senior Reporter, WAMU 88.5

Panelists

Albert Motivans

Head, Education Indicators and Data Analysis, UNESCO Institute for Statistics

Sir John Daniel

President and Chief Executive Officer, Commonwealth of Learning

Owen Ozier

Economist, Development Economics Research Group
The World Bank

Bill Gates Gets Poor Marks for Ignoring Education

Justin W. van Fleet and Kevin Watkins — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 11:32:00 -0500

Editor's note: In a post to the Guardian's Poverty Matters Blog, Kevin Watkins and Justin W. van Fleet argue that the Cannes G-20 Summit was a missed opportunity to demonstrate how education is an essential component part of the development agenda, particularly with respect to reducing global poverty.

You've got to hand it to Bill Gates. The eurozone might be going up in smoke, financial markets are teetering on the brink, and international trade tensions are mounting, but the philanthropist gets prime time at the G20 summit in Cannes to present a report on global poverty. Pity about some of the content.

Education in the world's poorest countries does not figure high on Bill Gates's list of development priorities. The report to the G20 has just one throwaway sentence on education: "Evidence suggests that social enterprises such as private health clinics and schools have the potential to pay back the original capital invested — and sometimes provide market rates of return."

Read the full article on The Guardian »

Authors

Publication: The Guardian

At a Crossroads in Copenhagen: The Future of Financing for Global Education

Anda Adams and Kevin Watkins — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 15:30:00 -0400

Not all international gatherings get the attention they deserve. Next week, governments from around the world will meet in Copenhagen, Denmark to decide on aid levels for the Global Partnership on Education. You probably won’t read about it in the media. The outcomes won’t register in financial markets. But for the millions of children in the world’s poorest countries, this is a summit that matters.

The Global Partnership on Education is the world’s main source of multilateral aid for basic education. Currently housed in the World Bank, but governed through a wider partnership of U.N. agencies, donors, developing country governments and representatives of civil society, it provides grants to countries to support quality universal primary education. Financial commitments made in Copenhagen will set the budget for the next three years.

Crowded as the international development agenda may be, the state of education merits urgent attention. Progress toward the 2015 Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education has slipped in the past few years. With 67 million primary school age children out of school, along with an even greater number of adolescents, the international community needs to act now if the promise of education for all is to be kept alive.

But getting children into school is just one part of the equation. The abysmal state of learning in many countries means that as many as 200 million children will probably leave primary school unable to read, write or do basic math. As highlighted in a recent Brookings report, all of this adds up to a global crisis in learning.

Failure to respond to the learning crisis will have grave consequences. Education is one of the most powerful drivers of progress in areas such as nutrition, child survival and maternal health. It is also an engine of economic growth, innovation and employment creation.

At risk of understatement, the backdrop to the financial replenishment of the Global Partnership on Education is not propitious. Donors have not responded effectively to the global learning crisis and development assistance budgets are under pressure. Aid levels for education in the poorest countries have stagnated at less than $3 billion—far short of the $16 billion needed to achieve the targeted goals. To make matters worse, several bilateral major donors—including the host country, Denmark, as well as the Netherlands, Spain and the United States—are heading to Copenhagen having recently announced cuts in their aid budgets for global education. Meanwhile, the World Bank has allowed International Development Association (IDA) support for primary education in sub-Saharan Africa, the region that has furthest to travel, to fall to just $157 million in fiscal year 2011 (compared to an annual average of $202 million between fiscal years 2005 and 2009)—with 2010 and 2011 primary education financing at the lowest level since 2000-2001.

The agendas of the G-8 and the G-20 are dominated by the ongoing crisis in the euro-zone, recession and global imbalances. Yet the Copenhagen meeting is also an opportunity for donors to step up to the plate, demonstrate leadership and deliver on the education promise made to the world’s poorest children.

So what needs to happen? The Global Partnership for Education has called for commitments of $2.5 billion for its pooled fund, or around $600 million annually, but the response has not been encouraging. While 15 out of 22 donors have accepted the invitation to attend the conference, current estimates indicate that just $1.5 billion will be committed.

The United States is the only G-7 country that does not provide support. Given Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s leadership role on girls’ education and America’s strategic interest in seeing a broad expansion of educational opportunity, this makes little sense. And at least 69 members of the U.S. House of Representatives agree, having sent a letter to Secretary Clinton urging the U.S. to make a strong commitment. France and Germany have provided derisory levels of support to the fund. The United States should offer to come into the Global Partnership as a financial partner with an initial pledge of $375 million over three years, subject to France and Germany making matching pledges. As the current president of the G-20, France should take the lead role in brokering a deal.

The World Bank is also well-placed to provide leadership. Last year, World Bank President Robert Zoellick pledged to increase IDA support for basic education by $750 million annually to 2015. Using the 2008-2010 commitment levels as a benchmark, this implies average IDA spending of around $1.2 billion annually without taking into account any new commitments at Copenhagen. Early signs have not been encouraging. IDA commitments for basic education fell sharply in 2011. According to the World Bank, this reflects a lack of demand from developing country governments. If that is the case, the World Bank should go to Copenhagen with a creative solution for channeling IDA grants through the Global Partnership.

Making a success of the financial replenishment meeting in Copenhagen should be seen as a first step toward a more ambitious global agenda. Recent governance reforms have made the Global Partnership on Education a more effective body. But far more needs to be done. In contrast to the global funds for health, the Global Partnership on Education does not utilize a financing window for the private sector, depriving the partnership of a source of innovation and dynamism. Some of the countries with greatest needs—notably those affected by conflict—are not even covered. And disbursement rates to some countries have been far too slow, although this has been improving.

Looking foward, the Global Partnership for Education needs to demonstrate a real value-added in the aid architecture. It should have an unremitting focus on creating incentives for policies that tackle education inequalities, strengthen learning outcomes and build national capacity. It needs to become a hub for innovation and flexible responses to real problems. And it has to reflect a level of ambition commensurate with the scale of the education challenge. Some commentators argue that this will take more fundamental reforms. Former British prime minister, Gordon Brown, and Australian foreign-minister, Kevin Rudd, have both called for the Global Partnership for Education to be reconstituted as an independent organization, building on the model adopted by the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS and the Global Alliance for Vaccines.

With less than four years to 2015, the Copenhagen meeting should concentrate the minds of donors. A successful replenishment could provide the springboard for a renewed drive toward the education for all goals. Small investments of aid could yield dramatic advances. The question is not so much whether we can afford the investments but rather whether we can afford not to make them.

Authors

Anda Adams
Kevin Watkins