Prime Minister promises to double DFID education budget by 2010
3 July 2006
In his
major
speech on 2005 follow up, Tony Blair promised that the UK would more than
double spending on education in the developing world by 2010.
He said:
“In April, Gordon Brown and Hilary Benn, announced that the UK would provide £8.5bn over the next ten years to fund long-term education plans.
In order to deliver on this, I can announce tonight that DFID’s budget for education will more than double to over £1 billion a year by 2010, up from about £450 million last year.”
Taken together with the £8.5bn pledge in Maputo, this latest commitment makes education a central plank of DFID’s development policy and spending for the next decade and will be an important component of DFID’s drive to scale up support to basic services.
African governments are already starting to build on the UK initiative. At the Financing for Development conference in Abuja on 22 May, 20 African countries committed themselves to developing ambitious, 10 year investment plans for their education sectors.
Detailed decisions on how to channel the additional funds will be made in the
light of the outcome of the Comprehensive Spending Review, but it is probable
that the majority of the funds will be spent through DFID bilateral programmes,
as well as the
Education
for All Fast Track Initiative.
The Prime Minister also used his speech to announce increased support for post-primary education to underpin economic growth, good governance and public services. A DFID policy briefing paper setting out the details will be launched shortly.
