38874 Fast Track Initiative: Building a Global Compact for Education Around the world, there are still over 100 million children out of school, including 58 million girls. Despite overwhelming evidence that education can halt the spread of AIDS, increase economic growth and break the cycle of poverty, donor support for education has only increased modestly since 2000, when world leaders unanimously endorsed Universal Primary Education (UPE) by 2015. September 2005 The Education for All -- "Fast to act as the lead coordinating agency and takes responsibility for organizing the assessment of the Track Initiative" (FTI) country's program, utilizing the FTI appraisal guidelines was launched in 2002 as a partnership between and indicative framework, with the participation of all donor and developing countries to accelerate concerned donor agencies. progress towards the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of universal primary education. FTI is built on The lead coordinating agency takes responsibility for mutual commitments: 1) partner countries have preparing a report of the assessment, with notifica- agreed to give priority to primary education and to tion of endorsement and submits it to the develop sound national education plans, and 2) Government, the country development partners and donors have agreed to increase support in a transpar- the FTI Secretariat. ent, coordinated manner. Box 1. Major Donors FTI Promotes Education Globally, the Fast Track Initiative encompasses all Policy Reform major donors for education--more than 30 bilateral, regional and international agencies and development banks including; Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, To receive FTI endorsement, a country must have a Denmark, European Commission, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, poverty reduction strategy and a sound education New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Spain, sector plan: Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom and USA. Multilateral partners include: AfDB, ADB, IADB, A sound education sector plan should address con- UNAIDS, UNICEF, UNDP, UNESCO and the World Bank. straints to accelerating universal primary education in the areas of policy, data, capacity and financing. It should align primary education priorities with those for pre-school, secondary, tertiary and non-formal FTI Promotes Aid Effectiveness education. Specific elements should include: Country Ownership. The FTI donor partners help a costed strategy for accelerated progress towards countries to develop their own strategies to achieve universal primary education; universal completion of quality primary education. The FTI process is part of the development of compre- a strategy for addressing HIV/AIDS, gender equality hensive sector strategies built on broad-based and other key issues; consultation and medium term operational plans and budgets. FTI partners have created the Education national policy actions designed to improve educa- Program Development Trust Fund (EPDF) to tion quality, equity, efficiency and fiscal sustainability; strengthen leadership capacity and program quality. implementation capacity constraints and strategies Alignment. FTI donor partners are committed to to address them; and aligning their support to the development and indication of how the country intends to carry out Box 2. Partner Country Example: Nicaragua monitoring and evaluation and identify annual targets for measuring progress on key policies and Nicaragua has been on the forefront in the effort to outcomes, including those of the FTI indicative establish a results-oriented framework for the educa- tion sector and is securing a commitment from donors framework, as locally adapted. regarding aid alignment and harmonization. Local donors have endorsed Nicaragua's four-year Common Local donors at the country level endorse a country's Work Program (CWP), which establishes clear perform- education sector plan. Among the donors, one agrees ance benchmarks for the education sector. The monitoring of FTI targets and outcomes, donor Box 3. Partner Country Example: Niger financing flows and progress in aid coordination and Over the past four years, donors in Niger have aligned harmonization is built into the existing review process their priorities and interventions in support of the at the country level. Sector reviews are conducted government's national education plan, including regularly by the recipient country and its donor part- financial management systems. ners in a spirit of peer reviewing and learning. The results of each joint sector review are to be communi- cated to the FTI Secretariat in order to track progress implementation of a national education strategy and to foster cross-country sharing of lessons and integrated into country-wide development priorities. good practice. This provides a platform for donor coordination and a framework for the adoption of one set of monitor- ing indicators and one process for performance FTI Trust Funds assessment. There are two FTI Trust Funds. The Catalytic Fund and Harmonization. Donors increasingly use shared the Education Program Development Fund (EPDF) arrangements for aid, technical and analytical work, were established to provide short-term financial and and field missions. The FTI helps governments and technical support to help close the gap for countries donors to co-ordinate their efforts. The FTI endorse- with too few donors and to help those countries lack- ment process encourages harmonization through ing capacity to develop sound education strategies. use of the Appraisal Guidelines, developed for joint The Catalytic Fund provides transitional short-term evaluation of a country's education strategy. It includes an evidence-based Indicative Framework, which enables all donors and government to agree Box 4. Partner Country Example: Yemen on the same measures for monitoring progress and In Yemen, the initial $10 million from the FTI Catalytic helps with management by results. Fund will be used to increase the quality of education and the enrollment of girls (age 6-14), especially in The practical objective of the endorsement is an rural areas, where only 30% currently attend school. agreement between all donors and the government This includes hiring female teachers, building a rural on how best to achieve EFA. Local donor agencies training institute, and providing teacher housing. Contracts are underway for building 86 new schools; in FTI countries finance common programs and student kits to encourage enrollment are being distrib- arrange joint missions, share information and consult- uted; and 14,000 teachers have been newly trained. ants' reports and ask for fewer separate meetings with governments. In some countries, FTI partners are leading the way with new harmonization instruments Box 5. Partner Country Example: Guyana like partnership agreements and Memoranda of In Guyana, one of the first countries to receive Understanding between governments and agencies. endorsement by FTI, the Government has said it will need approximately $3.5 million per year, over Monitoring & Evaluation thirteen years, to achieve the education MDG. To date, the Catalytic Fund has distributed an initial $4 million and committed to another $4 million. $4 million per The FTI Indicative Framework provides a set of indicators year will make a huge difference in the lives of school which partner countries are asked to use to monitor children in Guyana. The resources should enable the country to increase completion rates of grade 6 from progress towards Universal Primary Completion (UPC). 65% to 100% in the remote areas and from 88% to They include resource mobilization, student flows, 100% in the coastland by 2015. The money should also number of teachers and teacher/student ratio and improve quality by supporting an increase in the enrollment. Countries may decide to add their own percentage of teachers with adequate training in benchmarks and indicators. remote areas from 32% to 74% and from 53% to 68% in the coastland. funding of two to three years as countries seek more Ghana, Guinea, Guyana, Honduras, Madagascar, sustainable support through regular bilateral and multi- Mauritania, Moldova, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Niger, lateral channels. The EPDF helps countries to prepare Vietnam and Yemen. and implement a sound education plan. It can also support all low-income countries in sharing their An additional 25 countries could potentially receive knowledge and experience on education and how to support from FTI over the next year, but successful reach the goal of UPC. These funds are administered expansion of FTI will require greater financial commit- by the World Bank, under the direction of a Strategy ments by donors and greater action toward reform by Committee consisting of representatives of the partici- recipient nations. Donors are contributing an estimated pating donors. $350 million in 2005 to these countries, leaving a financing gap of approximately $250 million this year. Expansion of FTI If all 25 countries that will potentially have education plans in 2005 are endorsed, an additional $2 billion will be required. At minimum, an average of $2.3 billion FTI is open to all low-income countries demonstrating in external financing per year through 2015 will be serious intent toward achieving universal primary needed to support 38 countries in FTI. completion. As of June 2005, 15 countries have had their education plans endorsed and are receiving More information on the EFA-Fast Track Initiative is avail- support from FTI: Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Gambia, able online at www.worldbank.org/ education/efafti. This note series is intended to summarize lessons learned and key policy findings on the World Bank's work in education. The views expressed in these notes are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the World Bank. For additional copies of Education Notes, please contact the Education Advisory Service by email at eservice@worldbank.org or visit the web site: http://www.worldbank.org/education/ Author: FTI Secretariat, 2005 Photographer: Trevor Samson, 2002