Increasing the effectiveness of donor co-ordination: A case study of the education sector in Bolivia, Burkina Faso and Tanzania

ActionAid Alliance has commissioned three
reports on donor co-ordination in Bolivia, Burkina
Faso and Tanzania. Each report examines the role
that donors play in that country in the sector vis-àvis
other donors as well as in relation to the
government and civil society. ActionAid Alliance
selected countries where the sectoral approach to
support in the education sector was already under
discussion and where the European Community
was a donor in the sector in addition to three or
more member states. The research continues a
theme established by ActionAid in 1999, whose
research into donor activity in the education sector
in Ghana revealed some startling instances of a
lack of donor co-ordination3.
Each author was asked to examine donor practice
and policy in the education sector in the country
concerned. They were asked to assess each donor’s
attitude to sector wide approaches, whether the
Framework agreed at the World Education Forum
in Dakar would lead to changes in donor practice
and whether donors were aware of and working to
meet the terms of the EU Code of Conduct (see
below). The authors were then asked to assess
positive and negative elements of co-ordination in
that country and propose suggestions for
improvement. Full-length versions of the reports
are also available from ActionAid Alliance which
cover the role of the government and civil society
in each country in more detail.