Report from FTI Presentations in Spain and Austria - February 2007

Desmond Bermingham gave presentations on FTI to donor and partner ministers, senior officials and NGO representatives in Spain and Austria. Ronald Siebes also attended the meetings in Spain as a representative of a major donor and the incoming co-chair of the FTI Partnership.

This is a summary of the main points from the presentations and side discussions at the two events.

Spain: AECI (Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional) Seminar on EFA and FTI - February 1-2, 2007
Presentation to AECI
Presentation to Autonomous Communities
Presentation to Civil Society groups

The objective of the seminar was to introduce the Fast Track Initiative to all interested parties and to show the value-added of FTI to an audience comprised of partner ministers, senior officials, and NGO representatives.

The seminar opened with a speech by Ms. Leire Pajín (Secretary of State for International Cooperation) who stated that Spain’s main education strategies included: (i) access; (ii) quality; (iii) gender equality; and (iv) the betterment of education overall.

Ms. Pajín called the FTI an “exemplary forum” and announced the Spanish government’s decision to provide €10 million euros to the Catalytic Fund in 2007, as well as additional bilateral support to its partner countries.

The Secretariat provided a general overview on the FTI, with an emphasis on turning the Paris Declaration principles into a reality on the ground. Questions following the presentation focused on: (i) status of Fragile States; (ii) clarification of new eligibility criteria for the expanded Catalytic Fund; (iii) monitoring and evaluation of FTI processes, including impact of FTI on endorsed countries; and (iv) CSO involvement in the evaluation and implementation of a country’s education plan.

The Secretariat had additional side meetings with the Spanish Autonomous Communities (ACs) and Spanish CSO representatives. [Note: Spain is comprised of 17 autonomous communities with wide legislative and executive autonomy, and their own parliaments and regional governments. In 2005, they disbursed €174 million euros in aid, representing 11% of bilateral ODA in that year.] The purpose of the meeting with the ACs was to present an overview of FTI, with a particular focus on financing mechanisms, including a detailed explanation on FTI Trust Funds.

Questions following the presentation focused on: (i) how to get involved in the FTI process, including by joining the sector dialogue at the country level; and (ii) existing monitoring systems for tracking funding.

The purpose of the meeting with the CSOs was to present an overview of FTI, with a particular focus on FTI governance and FTI’s strategic objectives following the Partnership meeting in Cairo. Questions following the presentation focused on: (i) FTI eligibility criteria; (ii) CSO’s participation in the endorsement process and the mechanisms for this participation; (iii) clarification of new eligibility criteria for the expanded Catalytic Fund; and (iv) the need for better alignment and harmonization of aid.

The second day of the seminar began with a roundtable which included presentations by Mr. D. Marco Antonio Garay Salgado (Vice minister of Education, Honduras), Mr. Manuel Lobo (Advisor to the Minister, Mozambique), Ronald Siebes (The Netherlands MoE), Desmond Bermingham (Head, FTI Secretariat) and was moderated by Maribel Rodriguez (Fundación Carolina).

The presentations focused on: (i) donor/partner-specific experiences of FTI; (ii) the need for ensuring quality and not only access; (iii) the need for predictable and long-term financing; (iv) the need for better harmonization and coordination; (v) the need for capacity development; and (vi) the need for strengthening CSO participation.

In response to questions raised regarding the greatest challenges for FTI, donors and CSOs were challenged to do more, and to fulfill the promises made.

The seminar concluded with speeches by Mr. Kailash Satyarthi (President, GCE), Ms. Milagros Hernando (Director of General Directorate for Development Policies Planning and Evaluation), and Mr. Ignacio Soleto (Director General of Fundación Carolina), who emphasized the importance of education in poverty reduction, and called for better coordination and greater policy coherence among the multilaterals, as well as a greater sense of moral accountability at various levels.

In addition to the main seminar events, Desmond also gave an interview for a youth program on national radio describing the FTI and explaining how it was helping to get more children into school and provide them with a good quality education.

Austria: Austrian Development Cooperation Agency. Seminar on EFA, February 6, 2007
Presentation

This meeting was a smaller scale but strategically important seminar to provide an update to Austrian government representatives, students and NGO representatives working in the education sector in Austria.

The Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is currently preparing a new education policy as part of an overall development policy review for the new government in Austria. The ministry is also involved in the early stages of planning to expand its development program to reach the 0.5% GNI goal announced at the EU Counsel meeting in 2005. [Note: Austrian ODA is currently just over $1.2 BN 0.5% GNI as a result of a large contribution to the Millennium Debt Relief and HIPC programs announced last year. Net ODA is approximately $600 M per year; of which approximately $150 M is managed directly by the development agency with the balance going through other ministries including the ministry of education for scholarship programs.]

The seminar opened with a presentation on the EFA Global Monitoring Report. FTI was then presented as a mechanism to help countries achieve faster progress towards the education goals. This was followed by a presentation from a GCE representative (Moire Leydon, Deputy Head of the Irish Association of Secondary Teachers). The afternoon session included presentations on specific issues including mother tongue teaching (Neville Alexander, Cape Town University); literacy and gender (Grace Bunyi, Women Educational Researchers of Kenya and FAWE representative); and skills development (David Atchoarena, IIEP).

The Austrian government concluded the seminar with a short presentation on the current levels of support for education provided by the Austrian development program. This was followed by a roundtable discussion with senior officials on the future of Austrian development cooperation in education.

Key issues for the FTI Partnership. Austria currently has a low level of investment from its development budget in education overall and basic education in particular. The bulk of their education support is in the form of scholarship programs and targeted projects for vocational training in its selected priority countries (Burkina Faso and Nicaragua).

At the official level, there was recognition that there was scope for Austria to do more in the education sector and to seek opportunities to align themselves more with the operations of other donors. At the same time, Austria is concerned to ensure that it invests strategically and targets its assistance to areas of greatest needs. Desmond encouraged Austrian colleagues to use the FTI framework to ensure that whatever support they provided was captured within the broader education sector program. Desmond also encouraged them to use the FTI network to get advice from other small and medium sized donors who had been through similar processes recently such as Sweden and Spain.