Contact: Angela Bekkers, Email: abekkers@educationfasttrack.org; tel +1 202-458-8831
Washington, D.C., March 22, 2011- On the eve of the Education for All High-Level Group Meeting in Jomtien, Thailand, the British government renewed its commitment to offer up to £100 million (or US$ 163 million) to the Education for All – Fast Track Initiative (FTI). The EFA FTI is an international partnership dedicated to ensuring quality basic education for all children. With this support, the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID) is challenging other donors to match these funds to help finance primary and lower secondary education in the 44 developing countries supported by the FTI partnership.
The British government is a major supporter of EFA FTI, helping the partnership achieve improvements in primary school enrollment, gender parity and school completion. During a meeting with FTI Board Chair Carol Bellamy, the UK Secretary of State for International Development, Andrew Mitchell, confirmed that Britain will match other pledges to EFA FTI on a 5 to 1 basis. This means that for every £ 5 million (or US$ 8 million) in donor support, DFID will put in another £1 million (US$ 1.63 million). If other donors can provide US$ 815 million, jointly with UK’s match funding, this could cover the costs of sending close to 8 million children to school for a year or build around 73,000 fully-equipped classrooms or buy 500 million text books.
The British funding is an important boost for FTI’s resource mobilization campaign, which will be launched tomorrow at the Education for All High-Level Conference in Jomtien, Thailand, an event which brings together 40 global leaders in education and international development. Earlier this month, the UK government promised to secure schooling for 11 million children over the next four years. DFID’s Multilateral Aid Review, released in early March, praised EFA FTI for a “strong” contribution to British development objectives. The review assessed the value for UK aid funding to over 40 international organizations, and provides the British government with the evidence to put more of its resources through those organizations which have the greatest impact on poverty reduction.
The reconfirmed British funding of £ 100 million will help the FTI partnership continue providing a quality education to the millions of children who are currently out-of-school or who drop out prematurely. The first payment from the British ‘challenge’ fund – worth £ 30 million (or US$ 49 million) – will be made this week, following pledges from other donors of US$ 242 million for FTI over the past year. The remainder of up to £ 70 million (US$ 114 million) will be released upon confirmation of more donor funding in 2011.
"We are extremely pleased with the British commitment. We see this as a sign of confidence in the EFA FTI partnership”, says Carol Bellamy, Chair of the FTI Board of Directors. “Education is one of the best investments that developing countries can make, and the UK support, leveraging other donor support, will help to advance this important work”.
