Education for all (EFA) in South Asia : analysing the trends and volume of official development assistance (ODA) in Pakistan and Bangladesh

Abstract

We are proceeding towards 2015 at a fast pace however; the EFA goals are still far from reaching the benchmarked literacy levels that were forecasted back in 2000. Hence, attention to the process of achieving these goals is urgent. Analysing the trends and volume of ODA is a part of this process, and is an important tool in overcoming the problem of lack of resources. Thus, data regarding the aid to these countries for education is crucial for the analysis of this research. Moreover, figure 1 shows that in order to fulfill the right to education; the developed world adopted the EFA goals. It was realized that these goals would not only be met by the help of commitment, timeliness and efficiency, but sufficient resources were needed as well to meet the resource gap. According to UNICEF studies, the gap between commitments and actual disbursements is still large – about USD 5 billion. Thus, a problem for the achievement of these goals is lack of resources which is facilitated by Official Development Assistance. This is why ODA is an integral component in facilitating the EFA goals in this specific case.