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Africa: Learning to Survive
AfricaFocus Bulletin
Apr 27, 2004 (040427)
(Reposted from sources cited below)
Editor's Note
Universal primary education is "the single most effective
preventive weapon against HIV/AIDS," says a new report by Oxfam
International. But donor countries are failing to come up with even
the minimal funds they have pledged to support African countries
under an optimistically named "Fast Track Initiative" to expand
education funding.
World Bank President James Wolfensohn, along with ministers from
Niger, the Netherlands, Canada, the UK, France, and Norway, called
for greater support for universal primary education at a press
conference held April 25 during the spring meetings of the World
Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Addressing appeals to
other donor countries, particularly the United States, Japan,
Germany and Italy, the speakers stressed the disparity between
global funding for war and for development. Countries represented
at the press conference announced small additional pledges. And
during the weekend, Mr. Wolfensohn urged the world to give
attention to global poverty as well as Iraq. However, neither the
World Bank nor donor countries announced any major new commitments.
The World Bank did release this year's edition of World Development
Indicators and a new Global Monitoring Report on progress toward
the Millennium Development Goals, both available on the World Bank
website (http://www.worldbank.org).
But the only major success against poverty the Bank was able to cite was that the number of
people worldwide living on less than one dollar a day dropped from
1.5 billion in 1981 to 1.1 billion in 2001. This change was due
almost entirely to economic growth in China and India. In Africa,
by contrast, the number of people living on less than one dollar a
day increased from 164 million to 314 million. The World Bank press
release did not note the irony -- that the advances came in
countries that were the least dependent on World Bank economic
policy advice during the period.
This AfricaFocus Bulletin includes excerpts from the press release
and executive summary from Oxfam International launching the
"Learning to Survive" report, and a short extract from that report
on funding shortfalls in Niger, one of the Fast Track countries
where donors have failed to provide promised support.
The data in the report provide new reinforcement for familiar
themes: the well-established strategic importance of education and
the long tradition of donor failure to meet commitments. See the
UNESCO website on Education for All
(http://www.unesco.org/education/efa),
which contains an annual global monitoring report. For additional background on the Global
Campaign for Education and the World Education Forum held in Dakar
four years ago, see:
http://www.africaaction.org/docs00/ed0004a.htm
and
http://www.africaaction.org/docs00/ed0004b.htm
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Oxfam International
New report reveals: Education could save seven million young people
from HIV
23 April 2004
[Excerpt from press release. Full press release and report
available at:
http://www.oxfaminternational.org/eng/pr040423_gcereport_hivaids.htm
See also http://www.campaignforeducation.org
Washington DC: Seven million cases of HIV could be prevented in a
decade if all children in the world received a complete primary
education, reveals a ground-breaking new report released today by
the Global Campaign for Education .
The report, "Learning to survive: how education for all would save
millions of young people from HIV/AIDS," is based on new research
showing that young people (15-24 years) who have completed primary
education are less than half as likely to contract HIV as those
missing an education. It reveals that, by accelerating behavior
change, universal primary education would prevent 700,000 cases of
HIV each year, about 30 percent of all new infections in this age
group.
Yet despite the huge impact that education could have in fighting
the onslaught of HIV, especially among young women, shortfalls in
donor aid for education mean that over 100 million children are
still missing school. Without urgent action it will be 150 years
until every child in Africa is able to attend school.
"Failure by donor countries to invest in achieving universal
education now will mean increased poverty later, and will condemn
countries hard-hit by AIDS to a grim future of underdevelopment and
dependence," states the report. ...
It would take an additional $5.6 billion in aid to ensure that
every child could go to school, which is the equivalent of just
three days global military spending.
The report calls upon donor countries meeting this week at the
World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington DC to expand and properly
coordinate funding education for all, beginning with fully funding
the twelve low income countries whose education plans have been
endorsed through the Education for All Fast Track Initiative.
A clear example of donor country failure is in Niger, where
HIV/AIDS rates are increasing and education is crucial in halting
the spread of the disease. UN figures show that whilst only 13% of
uneducated men used a condom with their most recent casual partner,
30% of men with some primary education did, and 64% of men with
some secondary education did.
Yet in a country where 1.3 million children remain out of school,
HIV/AIDS prevention is seriously hampered. The government of Niger
realizes the importance of primary education and has increased the
enrolment rate from 34% to 42% in just 5 years. It developed a
comprehensive education plan that was approved by donors under the
Fast Track Initiative, yet donors simply have failed to come up
with the money, and a $32 million dollar shortfall remains....
Among Learning to Survive's key findings:
- Education is just one part of the comprehensive multi-sectoral
strategy needed to address the HIV/AIDS crisis, and must be
implemented alongside expanded treatment, care and support for
those infected and prevention.
- Universal Primary Education (UPE) would reduce the number of new
HIV infections among young people by 700,000 annually through
accelerating behavior change. ...
- Education is especially empowering for girls and young women,
which is key to its efficacy against HIV/AIDS, a disease which
thrives on the social and economic vulnerability of young women.
- Literate women are three times more likely than illiterate women
to know that a healthy-looking person can have HIV, and four times
more likely to know the main ways to avoid AIDS, according to a
32-country study.
- In Kenya, 17-year-old-girls still in school were almost 4 times
more likely to have delayed sexual activity than those who were out
of school
- Recent household surveys in 11 countries show that women with
some schooling were nearly five times as likely as uneducated women
to have used a condom the last time they had sex.
- Globally, about one third of those currently living with HIV/AIDS
are aged 15-24 and the majority of new infections occur among young
adults.
- In Uganda, HIV prevalence rates were cut from 15% in 1990 to 5%
in 2000. Free primary education, which doubled enrolments when it
was introduced mid-decade, played an essential role in this change
process-the government estimates that some 10 million young people
now receive AIDS education in the classroom. A massive change in
sexual behavior has resulted. In one school district in 1994, more
than 60 per cent of students 13 to 16 years old reported that they
were already sexually active. In 2001, the figure was fewer than 5
per cent.
What is the Fast Track Initiative?
Two years ago, in April 2002, donors at the World Bank Spring
meetings took a major step towards achieving universal education
with the launch of the groundbreaking plan called the Fast Track
Initiative. The Fast Track Initiative was a new compact between
several donor and developing countries: if developing countries
developed sound, credible plans to expand education access and
quality, donors would not let them fail for lack of funding. The 12
initial countries included: Yemen, Gambia, Mauritania, Niger,
Burkina Faso, Guyana, Nicaragua, Mozambique, Ghana, Vietnam,
Honduras, and Guinea
For a copy of the report or more information contact Caroline Green
at Oxfam in Washington DC on +1 202 496 1174 or mobile +1 202 321
7858 or visit http://www.campaignforeducation.org
Learning to survive:
How education for all would save millions of young people from
HIV/AIDS
22 April 2004
Executive Summary
New analysis by the Global Campaign for Education suggests that if
all children received a complete primary education, the economic
impact of HIV/AIDS could be greatly reduced and around 700,000
cases of HIV in young adults could be prevented each year - 7
million in a decade.
HIV/AIDS is spreading fastest among young women (ages 15-24), not
only because their physiology puts them at risk, but also because
they have little access to knowledge, economic resources and
decision-making power. Education changes this equation, giving
women the information and the clout they need to keep themselves
safe. Literate women are three times more likely than illiterate
women to know that a healthy-looking person can have HIV, and four
times more likely to know the main ways to avoid AIDS, according to
a 32-country UN study. Evidence from 17 countries in Africa and
four in Latin America shows that better-educated girls hold off
longer on sexual activity, and are more likely to require their
partners to use condoms. Women with some schooling are nearly five
times as likely as uneducated women to have used a condom the last
time they had sex. But education also accelerates behaviour change
among young men, making them more receptive to prevention messages
and more likely to adopt condom use.
Education is so strongly predictive of better knowledge, safer
behaviour and reduced infection rates that it has been described as
the "social vaccine", and UN and World Bank experts say it may be
'the single most effective preventive weapon against HIV/AIDS'. And
in countries with high or fast-growing prevalence rates, getting
every child into school now is essential to stop AIDS destroying
the fragile stock of human capital on which poor people's
livelihoods and developing countries' economic futures depend.
Whereas experts postulate that economic growth in countries
hard-hit by HIV/AIDS will drop by 1-4 per cent a year, UN research
suggests that raising the average education of the labour force by
one year raises GDP by 9 per cent. Each year of basic education,
the 'people's asset', increases the productivity of African peasant
farmers by 3-14 per cent.
Despite the proven efficacy of education in fighting the onslaught
of HIV, over 100 million children worldwide are still missing
school. Rich countries are not delivering the promised aid and debt
relief that developing countries need to hire more teachers and
build more classrooms. Without urgent action, including substantial
increases in aid to education, Africa will not be able to get every
child into school for another 150 years. As new figures published
in this report show, even the developing countries that have gone
furthest to reform their education systems have been stranded
without effective support. Yet, for relatively small amounts of
money, donors could ensure that every girl and every boy receives
a quality basic education. An additional US$5.6 billion in aid to
basic education, intelligently targeted via the Education for All
Fast Track Initiative, would dramatically increase our chances of
halting and reversing the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the next decade.
Universal primary education is not a substitute for expanded
HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention. Both are complementary; and both
are urgently necessary if we are to win the fight against the
disease. To achieve UPE, halt and reverse HIV/AIDS, and fulfill the
other UN development goals, overall aid budgets must rise to at
least 0.7 per cent of GNI in line with the commitments made in
Monterrey. At least 10 per cent of that should be devoted to basic
education. In addition, about US$10bn annually will be required to
mount adequate treatment and prevention programmes in all
developing countries, including an estimated US$7bn to underwrite
the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The
combined annual cost of UPE and expanded treatment and prevention
US$16bn is less than the amount Europeans and Americans spend on
pet food every year.
In the words of Angeline Mugwendere, leader of an African youth
network, 'Education is a lethal blow to AIDS. With access to
school, many of my friends would be alive today.' The World Bank
Spring Meetings in April 2004 provide an opportunity for rich
countries to start making a difference now by properly funding and
coordinating the Education for All effort:
1.) Increases in aid to education must reach the countries that
have greatest need of additional resources, and have shown the
strongest commitment to achieving Education for All. Finance and
development ministers should strengthen and expand the Fast Track
Initiative to serve as the coordinating mechanism through which
donors will identify and collectively support the countries whose
funding needs deserve the highest priority. Fast Track partners
should pledge to channel 75 per cent of new aid for basic education
to Fast Track-endorsed countries.
2.) As a first step, rich countries must immediately make up the
remaining funding shortfalls for the 12 low-income countries whose
education plans they have already endorsed through the Education
for All Fast Track Initiative.
3.) Finance and development ministers meeting in Washington this
week should call for a review of the 34 additional countries that
have already qualified for Fast Track status, but have not yet had
plans endorsed. The review should establish whether the country is
in possession of a credible plan for achieving Education for All
(EFA), whether existing donor commitments are adequate to support
this plan, and whether outstanding finance needs can be met through
existing in-country channels. Findings should be presented to the
Fast Track partnership and the Development Committee in Spring
2005.
4.) Beyond this, rich countries must begin to work with developing
countries in genuine partnership. Key markers of this would be the
inclusion of Southern ministers on the steering committee of the
Education for All Fast Track Initiative, an end to donor-only
meetings, and full implementation of a transparent system to
monitor the quality as well as the quantity of donor aid to
education.
5.) Finance ministers of developing countries should ensure that
they are increasing budgets for basic education alongside budgets
for primary health care and AIDS prevention and care. Priorities
for increased education spending should include abolishing primary
school fees and charges; achieving gender parity in both primary
and secondary education; improving teacher training; and
incorporating sexual and reproductive health education and life
skills training into the curriculum.
As Nelson Mandela has noted, 'Education is the most powerful weapon
you can use to change the world.' It is also a weapon that the
world cannot do without in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Education
saves lives. And ignorance is lethal.
Niger, once protected from HIV/AIDs through its relative isolation,
is now seeing the disease spread. Health workers report that
increasing numbers of migrant workers are returning to Niger
infected, and passing the disease on to partners though unprotected
sex. HIV prevalence among women attending antenatal clinics in the
capital Niamey quadrupled in just over a decade, from 0.5 per cent
in 1987-88 to 2 per cent in 2000, and is now estimated at 4 per
cent. A government paper concluded that it has so far been
unsuccessful in holding back the spread of the disease.
Education is crucial to breaking down this wall and to enabling
people to respond effectively to HIV/AIDS information. As the Peace
Corps in Niger concluded, 'prevention though education can halt the
spread of the virus'. UN figures show that while only 13 per cent
of uneducated Nigerien men used a condom with their most recent
casual partner, 30 per cent of men with some primary education did
so, and 64 percent of men with some secondary education. ...
But in a country where less than a quarter of children complete
primary education (and only 42 per cent of children even begin it)
HIV/AIDS prevention is seriously hampered.
The government of Niger understands the importance of education for
all. It has already increased the primary education enrolment rate
from 34 per cent to 42 per cent in just five years, and has
developed a comprehensive strategy to deliver increased education
that representatives of donor countries agree is of a very high
standard. Donors accept that, despite significantly increasing its
own spending on education, Niger (the poorest peaceful country in
the world) requires additional international funding. In June 2002,
Niger was invited into the Fast Track Initiative and in November
2002 the country's education plan was endorsed and the required
additional international funding was promised in full.
Yet rich countries continue to ignore their own promise and to
neglect Niger's children, 1.3 million of whom remain out of school.
A US$32 million dollar shortfall remains in the plan for the next
two years, and funding after that looks even more uncertain. One
Western diplomat admitted it was 'a scandal, an absolute scandal'.
Unless the shortfall is made up in full, Niger's children will
continue to be without the opportunity and protection that
education provides
AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with
a particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.
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