Education for all 2000–2015: review and perspectives

This article provides a brief overview of global progress towards the six EFA objectives and international assistance to EFA strategies. It shows that, despite modest moves toward EFA achievement – some of them through explicit policies and actions by governments, international organizations, donors, and NGOs – progress since Dakar has been uneven. Much of the broad EFA agenda remains unfinished, as none of the objectives have been achieved. The global EFA mechanisms worked despite, not because of international EFA coordination efforts. Much hope had been placed on the external financing of EFA in order to accelerate EFA progress. While aid has increased, the total volume of external aid has fallen well below what has been identified as necessary, has been insufficiently focused in the most needy countries, has decreased as a proportion of recipient governments' budgets for the period and has not always been delivered effectively