SIAKON MEDIA

Monday, February 08, 2010 01:35:09 AM

PA

Education and Finance in Africa

At a recent conference that brought together African Finance and Education ministers, the keynote speaker, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Finance Minister (and former Education Minister) of Singapore gave a beautiful speech about Singapore's experience that contained some potentially difficult and controversial messages for Africa.

There is a virtual circle of education and growth, but you need to create it. This means that Finance Ministers should be concerned about education, and Education Ministers about economic growth. At the conference, one participant, when asked a question about education in his country, said "I'm the Finance Minister, not the education minister."

Singapore emphasized technical and vocational education by giving it prestige that was almost equal to academic education. This involved, among other things, a public relations campaign. As participants at the conference said, in Africa, we also need to deliver on the quality of vocational and technical education.

Singapore's insistence on education being a meritocracy (students advance purely on merit) has led to equity. For instance, the top 5 percent of the students come from 95 percent of the schools. But to make this work, the education system needs to be insulated from politics.

As Tharman said, the role of political leaders is to keep politics out of education.

In Singapore, universities charge full fees, and give scholarships to low-income students. The government encourages private donations to universities, matching them one-for-one. How many African universities can overcome the political resistance to charging fees?.

Singapore has done well with teacher training because it has been linked with pay-for-performance for teachers. Without the latter (which is often resisted by teachers' unions), it is difficult to get results from the former.

Interestingly, Tharman didn't mention foreign aid once (even though the conference participants discussed it many times). He was even equivocal on the importance of public spending, pointing out that Singapore spends less (as a share of the budget) on education than the OECD, and yet has better test scores. There was more emphasis on efficiency gains.

To achieve these efficiency gains, it's important that finance and Education Ministers hold each other accountable.I found the statements by Finance and Education Ministers from the same country saying how well they got along a bit troubling: there has to be some tension in the relationship for mutual accountability to work.

Finally, Kevin Watkins gave a presentation on the EFA Global Monitoring Report which struck me as providing the best way to make the case for protecting and even increasing aid to education: that aid has been productive, generating unprecedented increases in enrolment in Africa.If donors want their aid to be productive, this is a sector they should support.


Author: Shanta Shanta Devarajan, Chief Economist of the Africa Region at the World Bank

   Accra, Feb 5, GNA - The United Nations on Thursday announced a further allocation of $ 20 million from its Peacebuilding Fund to the Central African Republic (CAR) to support security sector reform, economic revitalization and the rule of law in consolidating peace in the country.

CAR has already received $ 10.8 million from the Fund, which was created in 2006 as part of reforms setting up the UN Peacebuilding Commission, an intergovernmental advisory body of UN entities and member states, international financial institutions and others on how best to coordinate the world community's aid in post-conflict countries, according to a statement from the UN Information Centre in Accra on Friday.

It said during a visit this week to CAR, which had been beset by sporadic conflict between Government forces and rebels and a spill-over of violence from its neighbours that have left hundreds of thousands of people displaced, Assistant Secretary-General for Peacebuilding Support Ms. Judy Cheng-Hopkins said the new funding will deliver peace dividends to all.

In the area of security sector reform, it will provide start-up funding for the construction of two of the four barracks needed to support 10 police contingents and is expected to leverage further funding from other donors.

In supporting economic revitalization, it will fund a joint project between the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to create quick peace dividends to help internally displaced persons (IDPs) to return home.

"Again, it is hoped that this project will be scaled-up with future funding from bilateral or multilateral donors."

It said in the area of governance and rule of law, the funding would assist a new human rights commission and the development of a human rights action plan.

Additionally it will fund the construction of two new prisons providing those found guilty of crimes with safe and secure detention facilities.

Ms. Cheng-Hopkins is travelling with Bisrat Aklilu, Executive Coordinator of the Multi Donor Trust Fund Office, which is run by UNDP and administers the Peacebuilding Fund, which is currently supporting more than 100 projects in 15 countries.

Countries on the agenda of the Peacebuilding Commission receive funding, and those that are not may also receive funds following a declaration of eligibility by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

In December, Mr Ban's Special Representative in CAR, Sahle-Work Zewde, warned the Security Council that international assistance was vital to prevent CAR from sliding back into political crisis and potential new fighting as it prepares for elections this year.

GNA

Ghana's poverty line reduces significantly -GLSS

The Ghana Living Standard Survey (GLSS) has noted that even though Ghana is "experiencing rising inequality, growing regional disparity and deep poverty with the Cedi's value depreciating by 23% and 19% against the dollar and the euro." In 2008 alone, there was a significant fall from 51.7% in the 1990s to 28.5% in 2005 and 2006 of the population living below the poverty line.

There is however a reduction of inflows of donor funds to both government and CSOs worsening the plight of the rural poor and urban women and children, as well as the vulnerable in society.

These revelations were made at the launch of the 2009 edition of Social Watch report in Accra. Titled 'Making Finances Work: People First', the report is a collection of reports from over sixty member countries around the world, on the general impacts of the economic and ecological crisis on these countries.

Also in the report are issues about food insecurity from the World Food Programme Comprehensive Food Security and Vulnerability Analysis of Ghana.

In this document, The World Food Programme identified food insecurity among some 1.2million and another 2 million people who had inadequate consumption patterns in Ghana's entire population. The study revealed a worrying trend of 34%, 15% and 10% of the people of Upper West, Upper East, and Northern Regions with inadequate consumption patterns respectively.

At the Forum, the Global Social Watch Coalition faulted the capitalist profit-driven economic system for failing to prioritize human interests and for not considering human right issues, poverty and the marginalized in the society.

According to the coalition, these were among other issues the coalition enumerated as accounting for the global economic down-turn.

Speaking at the launch, Dr. Rose Mensah-Kutin, of NetRight and ABANTU Ghana, disclosed that the inherent deficiencies of the global economic structure in tackling poverty, inequality in wealth distribution and the recent global economic crisis are among some of the factors that flaw the capitalist system.

She complained about the inability of the banking and financial sectors to facilitate access to their services by the marginalized and poor in society and said there was the need for reforms in the current economic decision making procedure.

Dr. Yao Graham, Executive Director of the Third World Network, Africa, and member of the Social Watch Assembly, explained that Ghana will be the first African country to host the Social Watch Assembly which will take place between the 25th and 27th of October, 2009. This forum, he said, will provide the platform for member countries to discuss the most pertinent issues as far as development is concerned.

The assembly is expected to elect new leaders of the Coordinating Committee, as well as effect review of the Social Watch achievements in terms of economic and social development. Dr Graham intimated that a public forum will be held after the two-day conference to communicate to Ghanaians the various decisions reached at the Assembly.

According to him, the forum, which will have more than 100 participants from 60 countries, will provide the opportunity for the different regional groupings to share experiences on the impact of the global financial crises. The Global Social Watch Coalition is a collection of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) from 60 countries including Ghana.


Author: Akwasi Fredua and Kwesi Yrenkyi Boateng