Donors pledge more than US$1.5 billion to Global Partnership for Education; Executive Director Lake urges focus on most disadvantaged by Joan Howe

Copenhagen, 9 November 2011 – Leading donors at the first-ever Global Partnership for Education (GPE) Pledging Conference promised an initial US$1.5 billion over the next three years to put millions more children in school.
The multi-partner global partnership met on 7-8 November in Copenhagen, Denmark, where donors also pledged to increase bilateral funding to support education investment and achieve concrete results in access and quality of education. The pooled education fund aims to secure predictable funding to put 25 million more children in school over the next three years. Developing countries pledged to increase domestic funding for education by more than US$2 billion...

Challenges for the Optimal Allocation of Educational Aid: Should MDG Priorities be more prominent? by Christopher Colclough

RECOUP Working Paper Series, 40, March 2011
This paper examines the criteria for aid allocation that are revealed by present practice in the education sector. Using a set of priorities suggested by the MDGs, and recent data on aid flows to different countries, it compares actual with "optimal" allocations according to different interpretations of educational "need". Focussing on British aid, it finds that there are sharp deviations between the volume of aid to education received by different countries and their requirements as suggested by "needs-based" criteria. Significant contrasts between relative resource requirements and aid provision to education are also present when looking at aid flows from all sources.