According to a new report published by UNESCO, international aid is at the lowest since 2001. This information came to light after UNESCO’s Education for All programme analyzed international aid statistics ahead of a high level meeting in New York two weeks ago. The report showed that international aid had dropped by 6% between 2011 and 2012, with six of the largest donor countries including Canada, France, Japan the Netherlands, and the US, all cutting foreign aid spending.
Due to this shift in donation rates, the UK is now the largest bilateral donor of educational aid to developing countries. The repercussions of the cuts are predicted to affect some of the world’s lowest income countries, and put great strain on the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) for education which strives for universal primary education by 2015.
Reasons for the cuts in spending vary. For example, the Netherlands are cutting their aid by 30% between 2010 and 2011. This is a result of their decision to phase out education programmes that do not align with their pre-existing foreign policy priorities. In the same time span, a similar wave of decisions occurred in Japan, which has cut its aid by 30%, and Canada, which cut its aid by 21%.
What makes this situation more tumultuous is that it is some of the world’s lowest income countries that are suffering most from the reduction of funds. Countries such as India, Bangladesh, Malawi and Papua New Guinea will witness a severe downturn in the number of students to be granted the basic right of a primary education since support from the EU fell by almost one-third between 2010 and 2011.
The final report of the UN high-level panel on post-2015 development proposed a broad goal for quality education and lifelong learning. It suggested targets to increase the proportion of children able to access and complete pre-primary education, and to ensure every child not only completes primary education but leaves able to read, write and count. It also recommended targets to ensure every child has access to lower secondary education, and increase the number of young people and adults with the technical and vocational skills.
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