FAQs

Girls are increasingly completing school. In 2008, more than two thirds of girls completed the last grade of primary school in all FTI countries compared to only 56% in 2002. EFA FTI is committed to reducing the drop-out rate of girls even further.

The Education for All - Fast Track Initiative (EFA FTI) is a global partnership between developing countries and donors, multilateral institutions, civil society organizations, and the private sector dedicated to ensuring that all children receive quality basic education.

All low-income countries which demonstrate serious commitment to achieve universal primary completion can join EFA FTI. The partnership is built on mutual accountability. Developing countries commit themselves to create and implement sound sustainable education plans and increase domestic finance for basic education. Donor countries, multilateral organizations, private sector actors, and civil society organizations then commit themselves to align their support to these plans through increased cooperation and financial support.

World leaders declared, at the Dakar education forum in 2000, that “no country seriously committed to Education for All will be thwarted in its achievement of universal primary school completion by 2015 due to lack of resources.”

There is overwhelming evidence that education – particularly for girls – is one of the best investments in development. Education is fundamental to reducing poverty and inequality: education empowers people to provide for themselves and their families. It lays the foundation for broad-based sustained economic growth and a more productive population. It can reduce the spread of HIV/Aids and other diseases; it lowers maternal and child mortality. Education promotes good governance and stability.

Yes. Noteworthy progress has been made. EFA FTI gets more children into school, including girls, and more children complete school. In many FTI-endorsed countries, domestic financing for basic education has increased and EFA FTI contributes to the overall aid coordination and aid effectiveness in the education sector.

More specifically:

• Getting all boys and girls into school: From 2002 to 2008, the number of children enrolled in schools in FTI countries in Africa rose by 50% and 19 million more children were enrolled in school in FTI countries worldwide.
• Improving school completion rates: 27 (out of 43 ) FTI countries have either achieved or are close to achieving equal primary school completion between boys and girls.
• Girls catching up: Girls account for a remarkable 62% of new enrolments in Africa. Girls represent 54% of newly enrolled children globally, showing that girls are at last catching up with boys. In 2008, more than two thirds of girls completed the last grade of primary school in all FTI countries compared to only 56% in 2002. EFA FTI is committed to reducing the drop-out rate of girls even further.
• Promoting harmonization and aid effectiveness: FTI promotes harmonization and aid effectiveness, with the partner country in the driver’ seat. The OECD and the United Nations have praised FTI as an excellent model for donor coordination and collaboration.

EFA-FTI is a global partnership dedicated to quality basic education for all children by 2015, which is both an Education for All and a Millennium Development Goal.

Throughout the first half of the 1990s, world conferences organized by the United Nations gave rise to eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to reduce poverty and achieve sustainable development.

World leaders, at the 2000 Millennium Summit, pledged to work together towards achieving these goals, two of which coincide with those adopted at the World Education Forum: achievement of universal primary education by 2015, and elimination of gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005.

Another MDG explicitly recognizes that eradicating poverty worldwide can be achieved only through a global partnership for development. This global deal makes clear that it is the primary responsibility of poor countries to ensure efficient use of resources and greater accountability to citizens. But for poor countries to achieve the MDGs, it is critical that wealthier countries increase support and do so more effectively.

No, EFA FTI is not only a fund. It is also a platform for policy dialogue and aid coordination. Both the UN and the OECD have praised EFA FTI as a model of donor coordination. EFA FTI takes a "horizontal" approach for the education sector. Developing countries develop a national education sector plan in dialogue with donors and civil society organizations. Countries with endorsed education sector plans can apply for financing from the FTI’s Education for All fund. This fund, which is managed by the World Bank as trustee replaces the multi-donor Catalytic Funds (CF), the Education Program Development Fund (EPDF), and the Secretariat Trust Fund.

The EFA-FTI partnership is grounded in the collective wisdom of the global conferences of the past few years.

• Education for All goals adopted at the World Education Forum, April 2000, Dakar, Senegal.180 countries committed themselves to providing quality education for all the world’s children by 2015.
• Millennium Development Goals adopted at the UN summit, September 2000, in New York. World leaders agreed to 2015 as the year that all boys and girls should complete a full cycle of primary education.
• Monterrey Consensus forged at the International Finance and Development Conference, March 2002, Monterrey, Mexico. The consensus committed rich nations to boost trade and aid opportunities for countries with sound policies.
• Rome and Paris Declarations on Harmonization and Aid Effectiveness (2003 and 2005). The development community committed to work towards aligning its assistance around country development priorities and to harmonize donor policies and priorities around country systems.

EFA FTI is open to all developing countries demonstrating serious intent toward quality basic education for all children. However, successful expansion of EFA FTI will depend largely on greater financial commitments by donors. The FTI partnership has been praised by the international community as a model of donor harmonization. Early results show that its main trust fund has been effective in providing resources to implement sound education sector plans. EFA FTI is not only about financing: it helps donors and developing country partners work together to ensure that education aid is better coordinated and more effective, based on countries’ own education strategies.

Yes, many CSOs actively support the work of the EFA FTI Partnership. CSOs play an important advocacy role in ensuring that education remains at the top of the development agenda and that countries receive the support and financial resources they need to achieve the education EFA and Millennium Development Goals. CSOs participate in local education groups and support progress toward EFA goals through advocacy and dialogue with governments and local donor groups on appropriate education policy and implementation with adequate financing. Civil society education partners work towards the achievement of the EFA goals, too. Civil society in education has improved its coordination at national level through coalitions, at regional and global levels. The Global Campaign for Education plays a very important role in the coordination of advocacy and campaigning efforts, e.g. through their annual Global Action Week. Civil society organizations are also represented on the FTI Board of Directors.

Currently, the president of the largest coalition of education NGOs, the Global Campaign for Education, sits on the FTI Board of Directors. A southern-based GCE coalition (EFANET Gambia) is also a member of the FTI Board of Directors.

Yes. The Fast-Track Initiative actively supports all low-income countries that demonstrate the will to reach the education MDGs, including countries in crisis and transition situations.

Depending on the various definitions of fragile states, 9 to 13 countries in crisis and transition situations are already operating within the FTI framework and have an endorsed sector plan.

A Countries in Crisis and Transition Situations Task Team was created to work with four pilot countries including Somalia, Haiti, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Burundi. Other countries were subsequently included, and by 2006, many "fragile states" were benefiting from funding from the Education Program Development Fund (EPDF).

The activities selected for financing demonstrate the requirements necessary, in these countries, for developing a solid and credible national education sector program.

The task team developed a Progressive Framework to support countries in crisis and transition situations to move from the humanitarian aid/emergency relief stage to a phase of regular development assistance where the countries, with the help of their development partners, are able to develop and implement a sector wide education plan. The idea is for lessons learned during the interim financing phase in fragile states to feed into the main FTI processes.

Key partners in the progressive framework pilot include UNICEF and the Netherlands. The main achievements have been quicker responses enabling increased funding to countries in crisis and transition situations; identifying the most appropriate agency to implement activities, including International NGOs; and a broadening of the rules to ensure that the funds effectively support in-country capacity to prepare credible sector plans.

EFA FTI is open to all developing countries demonstrating serious intent toward achieving universal quality primary education.

As of April 2011, 44 countries have had their education plans endorsed.

Foundations and private sector organizations have shown an increased interest in working with other FTI partners in the pursuit of EFA goals. Currently, the private sector and private foundations constituency is represented on the FTI Board of Directors through the participation of The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation as Board Member and Microsoft/Intel as Alternate Board Member.

The FTI process is firmly rooted at the country level. Therefore, it is the local partners that can assess whether a country is able and willing to develop a comprehensive education sector strategy, and whether the resources that may be made available to that country in this process can be absorbed effectively and used as intended. The EFA FTI tries to strike the right balance between ensuring that aid is not diverted to unfit purposes while still doing as much as possible to ensure that children are given the opportunity to go to school and learn.

The coordinating agency (CA) plays a key role in the EFA FTI Partnership. It serves as the communications link between the Government of the partner country, the Local Donor Group (LDG) and the FTI Secretariat.

The CA leads, or otherwise facilitates the Local Education Group (LEG) in its roles of supporting and monitoring the development, endorsement, and implementation of the Education Sector Plan (ESP). The CA reports on progress in implementing the ESP to the EFA FTI Board of Directors through the EFA FTI Secretariat.

UNESCO is an EFA FTI partner and has a permanent seat on the FTI Board of Directors. It also provides annual statistics on progress towards EFA goals and related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) through the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS).

Progress towards the six EFA goals - of which universal primary education and gender parity are also MDGs - is monitored by the annual EFA Global Monitoring Report, produced by an independent team based at UNESCO Headquarters.

At the global level, UNESCO was mandated at Dakar to monitor progress towards EFA and maintain the collective momentum of the EFA movement through its coordination role notably through the High-Level Group on EFA (HLG) that meets every year. UNESCO is responsible for establishing linkages between the Working Group on EFA (WGEFA), the High Level Group on EFA, and EFA FTI.

All low-income countries, which demonstrate serious commitment to achieving universal primary education, can receive support from EFA FTI.

National governments demonstrate their commitment through preparation and implementation of a comprehensive education plan including an adequate level of domestic spending on education, accelerating the pace of enrolling children in school, improving the quality of teaching and learning, and ensuring that students complete a primary education. In return, donors provide financial and technical support, in a coordinated and a predictable manner.

Yes. The Education for All Fast Track Initiative actively supports all low-income countries that demonstrate the will to reach the education MDGs, including countries in crisis and post-conflict. Depending on the various definitions of fragile states, 9 to 13 countries in crisis and post-conflict situations are already operating within the EFA FTI framework and have an endorsed sector plan.

In 2010, the EFA FTI Partnership opened the possibility for countries with low institutional capacities to endorse an Interim Education Plan. This plan will include a prioritization of the main urgent activities a Ministry of Education and education partners propose for a country in the next 18-36 months in order to improve the access and quality of education.

The EFA FTI Partnership developed the Progressive Framework in 2008 to support fragile States "to expand support for education to make progress towards achievement of the MDGs while increasing states' commitment and capacity to provide Education for All". The Framework was designed to guide transitions from humanitarian relief in emergencies, through an interim status towards the benchmarks outlined in the FTI Indicative Framework. It was decided in 2010 that a Progressive Approach will guide the planning processes in all FTI countries or willing to belong to the EFA FTI Partnership.

Key partners in the work in fragile States include UNICEF, acting as Supervising Entity in Guinea and Madagascar. The main achievements have been quicker responses enabling increased funding to countries in crisis and post-conflict situations; identifying the most appropriate agency to implement activities, including International NGOs; and a broadening of the rules to ensure that the funds effectively support in-country capacity to prepare credible sector plans.

A constituency-based model means that representation on the EFA FTI Board of Directors is by two persons (the Board member and the Alternate Board member) representing a large group of countries, agencies or organizations. For example, the private sector/foundations Board member is from the Hewlett foundation, but represents many corporations and foundations that participate in the private sector/foundations constituency. When the Board member speaks, she or he must first consult with members of his or her constituency to represent the views of the entire group.

The FTI Board of Directors is composed of 19 members, which represent the main constituencies of the FTI Partnership and is chaired by an individual independent of all Partner organizations. The 19 Board members consist of the following:

1. Six representatives from developing country partners with endorsed Education Sector Plans or fragile states with an agreed process of preparing such plan, divided along a geographical basis, including at least three from Africa.
2. Six representatives from donor countries contributing financial and other support to the FTI.
3. Three representatives from multilateral agencies: a representative of UNESCO, a representative of UNICEF and a representative of multilateral and regional development banks, currently represented by the World Bank.
4. Three representatives from Civil Society: one representing international/northern civil society organizations; one representing civil society organizations from developing country partners; and one representing members of the teaching profession.
5. One representative from the private sector/foundations
6. Board Members serve on the Board of Directors for two years as representatives of their constituencies. Each Board constituency represented has one vote. However, the FTI Board of Directors endeavors to make all decisions by consensus.

The Catalytic Fund (CF) was established in November 2003 by the FTI donors. Its goal is to provide transitional funding to help close the financing gap for countries with too few donors, while aiming to leverage more sustainable support through regular bilateral and multilateral channels. Given its transitional role, the CF is expected to remain small relative to support provided by the development partner community directly to the countries as a whole. However, the CF provides important backing to the FTI commitment that realistic financing needs in all qualifying countries will be met.

Donor contributions to the Catalytic Fund:

Catalytic Fund pledges and receipts total US $1.9 billion over 2003-2013, with over US $950 million disbursed to date. The following 18 donors finance the Catalytic Fund: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, the European Commission, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

The multi-donor Education Program Development Fund (EPDF) was established by FTI in November 2004 to enable more low-income countries to access the FTI and accelerate progress towards universal primary education.

For those countries without education plans and weak capacity, the Education Program Development Fund (EPDF) can provide technical support and build the capacity required to prepare a sound education plan.

Eligible activities under the EPDF are as follows:

Technical and analytical assistance for development of education policies, strategies and a national education sector plan in countries with insufficient capacity and donor support, including but not limited to strategic analyses of the status of the sector, the costing of national education plans, assessment of their fiscal impact, and support to consensus building around difficult policy issues and expenditure allocations.

Selective technical, analytical support to generate knowledge derived from country experience that can be shared within and across countries, related to the preparation and implementation of national policies and education sector plans to achieve the MDGs for education, particularly around difficult policy and expenditure allocation decisions and how to scale up reforms.

Technical and analytical services for strategic planning for levels of education other than primary as long as it is a part of the preparation of a sector wide program that supports Universal Primary School Completion (UPC) as a primary goal. This is in recognition of the impact of poor policies at other levels of education on the ability of countries to achieve the MDGs. The EPDF should not be used to finance plan development exclusively for other levels of education.