Africa: Global Fund for Education

"A Global Fund for Education holds the key to delivering on the world's commitment to education for all by 2015. Evolving current mechanisms into a more independent, inclusive, and accountable institution can catalyze the resources and performance needed to achieve universal education. [Because of the strong effects of education on other development goals] this would make a major contribution to reducing global poverty, empowering women, and promoting economic growth in low-income countries around the world." - Center for Universal Education

A year ago, at the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative, Presidential candidate Barack Obama pledged to establish a $2 billion Global Fund for Education so that every child around the world can go to school. Noting that President Obama will again address the Clinton Global Initiative this week, before appearances at the United Nations and at the G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh, David Gartner of the Center for Universal Education (http://www.brookings.edu/universal-education.aspx) urges the president to reaffirm his commitment and fill in the details.

Whether or not President Obama manages to add global education to his top priorities while also addressing other pressing demands such as the global economy, climate change, global health, and war in Afghanistan, is uncertain. But the call for a new global fund for education, on the model of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria, is increasingly seen in policy circles as the only plausible way to avoid letting education promises fall victim to the economic downturn.

Few doubt the value of expanding education. The World Bank, a former proponent of school fees that helped devastate African education in the 1980s and 1990s, has joined in a program called "The School Fee Abolition Initiative," Obama's top economic adviser, Lawrence Summers, has noted that "educating girls yields a higher rate of return than any other investment available in the developing world," But as on global health and climate change, a wide consensus on need is by no means a guarantee that the United States and other rich countries will make the necessary commitments.