13 September 2016 - DFI was commissioned by UNESCO to provide a background paper and case studies which were used for the new Global Education Monitoring Report. This publication series provides independent monitoring and reporting of the Sustainable Development Goal on education (SDG 4) and on education in the other SDGs, for the next fifteen years.

The 2016 instalment entitled “Education for People and Planet: Creating Sustainable Futures for All” aims to bring insight for governments and policymakers to monitor and accelerate progress towards SDG 4.

On the basis of the data collected for the Government Spending Watch initiative it manages, DFI contributed a background paper on “Integrated financial planning and SDG readiness in the education sector” which helps build the evidence for how prepared for a more holistic and integrated approach to financial planning developing countries are, in light of the new SDG agenda. DFI also prepared two case studies focusing on SDG readiness in South Africa and Colombia.

Related information on the report is available here.  

2 September 2016 -  Despite stable overall public spending figures, DRC’s expenditure in some key social sectors as percentage of total expenditure has declined from 2014 to 2015, notably in health and agriculture. GSW’s latest country spending summary highlights DRC’s shift of budgetary priorities in an election year where government spending seems to be reoriented towards public order and security, and infrastructure projects.

This note is also available in French. 

1-2 February 2016 - DFI facilitated a regional capacity-building workshop for Oxfam International Asia, training around 30 staff on analyzing fiscal justice to combat inequality. The training covered anti-inequality government spending (using the GSW database) and anti-inequality tax policy (using a new GSW tax database), and helped participants to define priorities for regional and country strategies to campaign for fiscal justice.

26 January 2016 - DFI participated in a British Academy International Forum with the secretariat of the International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity (chaired by Gordon Brown). Based on its work for GSW, GCE and UNESCO, DFI presented its views for priorities in mobilizing financing for education during the SDG period, and will be continuing to work with the secretariat over the next few months, making inputs on spending patterns and debt issues.

5-9 October 2015 - The DFI/Government Spending Watch team provided resource people for two simultaneous Oxfam events to design programmes for fighting inequality. The first was a workshop in Nairobi for Kenya and Vietnam, which are soon launching major programmes on anti-inequality tax and spending policies funded by the Government of Finland; and the second was a regional workshop in Dakar for West Africa, planning a regional report on inequality, as well as programmes in 8 regional countries on tax and spending issues.

10 December 2015 - WaterAid’s new report “Releasing the Flow” , based on research by Development Finance International, concentrates on the capacity to use available funds for water and sanitation in five countries in Sub-Saharan Africa - Ethiopia, Mozambique, Rwanda, South Africa and Uganda. The research suggests that effective leadership from government – at national, regional and local level – is a key factor for success.

In all case studies there is evidence that strong political will has translated into positive action on absorption of funds, greater transparency and improved water and sanitation services for people and communities. Other critical factors include the availability of skilled human resources, the balance between recurrent and capital funding for local government, and the quality of co-ordination and communication between major stakeholders.

You can also download the DFI global study.

28 October 2015 - The Global Campaign for Education (GCE) has published a new report which reveals a worrying failure in reaching education financing goals.

Taking stock of investment and aid levels in education since the goal-setting Dakar Education Forum fifteen years ago, Education Aid Watch 2015 checks delivery against promises made by donor countries and finds that they fall short of the pledged donor support for the Education For All and Millennium Development Goals.

In contrast, using GSW’s latest analysis of the budgets of 66 low-income and lower-middle-income countries, the report shows that more than half of aid recipient countries had increased the share of their budgets going to education since 2012.

Despite these positive advances in aid recipient countries and the continued commitments of some donors, the reports paints an overall picture of wholly inadequate support for the agreed goals and offers concrete recommendations to realise the post-2015 pledges.

10 September 2015 - Did the Third International Conference on Financing for Development deliver and meet expectations? And how should the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) be financed?

In this blog hosted by the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), Matthew Martin reflects on the outcomes of the Conference held in Addis Ababa last July and its implications on the financing of the SGDs, and makes recommendations to ensure they are efficiently financed.

August 2015 - The final ever Education for All Global Monitoring Report (GMR) published to coincide with the end of the Education for All (EFA) agenda and the MDGs to evaluate progress since 2000, has used Government Spending Watch figures. These helped evaluate domestic spending trends in the education sector to feed into the EFA report.

DFI prepared a background report analyzing recent domestic resource spending trends in the education sector using our GSW database.This has enabled the GMR team to analyse spending trends in areas which they have not done previously, in particular recurrent and capital breakdowns, and the breakdown of salaries compared to other areas, as well as budgeted spend against actual spend.

GSW data was commissioned for this study as this is the only cross-country comparable data source which allows spending within the education sector (or other sectors) into these areas.

27 July 2015 - A new report from Results UK uses Kenya as a case study to explore the implications of scaling-up Universal Health Care (UHC) in a country graduating from lower income to lower middle income status, and the challenge this will pose the country as Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) levels for health reduces in future years.

While acknowledging the need for ODA to continue to play a vital role, they also point to the increasingly important role domestic resource mobilisation (DRM) will have to play in the context of stagnating aid - especially when aid has previously provided close to 50% of the health budget (rising to 70% in some highly donor dependent sub-sections, such as HIV & AIDS).

This will necessitate a huge scale-up of DRM. Using Government Spending Watch estimates of the need to double tax revenues, as well as ensuring more equitable spend, they look at how this could be achieved progressively and equitably and outline a number of recommendations, including reducing illicit financial flow leakage out of the country, fighting against tax avoidance and tax evasion, improving the efficiency of the domestic tax base, and prioritising health spending.