The Global Financial and Economic Crisis and its Effects on Aid to Education in Developing Countries

Development Research Seminar Series:

Theme: Social Policy After the Financial Crisis

Through insights from the education sector, this paper will provide some initial reflections on the way the global financial and economic crisis is effecting the rationale, volume, purpose and direction of international development assistance from key OECD donors. Central to the presentation is the argument that crisis and austerity in the West is conditioning the way international development assistance is being understood and utilized and that this becomes intertwined  with a second ‘conditioning’ factor which is the increased concern of ‘security’ by the major international donors, since 9/11 and the onset of the ‘war on terror’. Pressures to justify sending money abroad whilst things are difficult at home, and pressure to ensure that aid projects are contributing to both ‘our’ own security and prosperity are in danger of undermining attempts since the end of the Cold war to make aid more transparent, democratic, accountable and sustainable. The discourses and practices of development agencies funding education have shifted from a focus on education as a human right aimed at the most marginal towards a focused targeting of aid to achieve economic and geopolitical objectives: soft power diplomacy, winning heart and minds, opening up education sectors to market prerogatives in developing countries and utilizing educational assistance as a mode of cultural influence. All of this is shifting both the geography and content of aid to education. Parallels to the last decades of the Cold War will be drawn to explore the way conditionalities and priorities relating to Western economic and geopolitical  interests undermined both the ideals and the outcomes of international development cooperation,  and further damaged the credibility of international development assistance as a mode of international solidarity and reinforced its image as a tool of Western domination and control.

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For any queries, please contact  Tanya Kingdon, kingdon@remove-this.iss.nl