Mid-Term Evaluation of the EFA Fast Track Initiative

 

In 2008, an external mid-term evaluation halfway to the ‘deadline’ of the Millennium Development Goals of 2015 was commissioned. A consortium of international consultants was selected to evaluate EFA-FTI’s relevance, effectiveness and efficiency. Published in February 2010, the mid-term evaluation provided a comprehensive analysis of FTI’s operations at the global level; it offered numerous country case studies, and interviews with hundreds of FTI partners and stakeholders.

A central finding of the report was that financing for basic education in low-income countries as a whole has fallen far below what is needed and that there was still a large number of children who are out of school and off track to complete a full cycle of primary education (especially in fragile countries). It noted that FTI's weakest link was monitoring and evaluation and that the impact it had on the 4 gaps (data, financing, capacity and policy) was smaller than expected.

  • However, the report mentioned that FTI-endorsed countries have performed better than non-endorsed countries: the number of children enrolled in schools in African FTI countries increased 64% between 2000 and 2007, which is double the increase of non-FTI countries.
  • It confirmed that FTI is a useful global policy forum keeping Education for All on the political agenda; it has successfully maintained a focus on country ownership, promoted aid effectiveness principles, and built on country processes and structures. It has financed critical gaps in some countries which would otherwise be unaddressed.
  • Additionally, FTI provided incentives to undertake sector planning, and enabled some donors (UK, Spain, the Netherlands) to scale up financing for basic education.
  • The report also noted that having a single joint mechanism to address basic education remains important.

The report concluded by saying that FTI is a relevant model to achieve EFA but it needs to focus more on building country owned education sector plans, implementing plans and achieving results, strengthening accountability mechanisms, getting more external support and learning from other global fund models.

Executive Summary

Final Evaluation Report

Country Case Studies

Full Country Case Studies

Country Desk Studies

Response from the Board of Directors

The Board of Directors met in Rome in November 2009 [see meeting minutes] and,  based on Decision BOD/2009/11-15, which called for a management response to be issued in response to the draft full evaluation report- a management response was circulated on December 4, 2009.

Consultations

The FTI Secretariat conducted a series of consultations with government officials from FTI countries, donor partners and civil society to gauge their views on the findings and recommendations of the evaluation report and future FTI reforms.

Last Modified: December 22, 2011