FINANCING FOR DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVE
In Partnership with the United Nations Department of Economic and Social
Affairs
Report to the Education for All High Level Meeting
On 7-8 November the World Economic Forum’s Global Institute for Partnership and
Governance in partnership with the UN Financing for Development Office, brought
together forty practitioners from intergovernmental, governmental and non
governmental organizations with private sector representatives to look at practitioners’
solutions to the persistent development challenges in public private partnerships (PPPs)
for basic education.
Some findings of the roundtable are:
- Private sector engagement in PPPs for basic education is increasing and varies greatly.
It ranges from philanthropy, corporate commitment to long-term social and economic
development to the commercial provision of goods and services, but also includes local
communities meeting their own needs.
-The role of PPPs in basic education is currently less about mobilizing substantial private
financial capital and more about using discretionary resources and providing innovative
approaches and methodologies that significantly contribute to the enhancement of the
quality of education and improve the reach and effectiveness of development assistance
and domestic resources.
-Sustaining the outcomes of PPPs in basic education will mean integrating institutional
strengthening into the design of partnership implementation arrangements.
-Further dialogue and mutual trust building between the more traditional stakeholders in
education and the private sector at international, national and local levels remains
a precondition for reaching co-operative arrangements for basic education and for
achieving the Education for All goals.
The World Economic Forum’s Financing for Development Initiative is beginning a
new, informal, multi stakeholder thought process on the effectiveness of public
private partnership (PPPs) in development. The findings from the discussions will be
integrated into the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meetings in Davos, Switzerland. A
final report combining an analysis of the roundtables detailing public-private success
factors that will be of practical use to governments, the private sector, NGO’s and
philanthropic foundations will be presented at the UN General Assembly High level
inter-governmental meeting in fall 2005. A collection of case studies on PPPs in basic
education is also being developed.
The second roundtable on development driven public private partnerships in basic
education will take place in the spring of 2005 and we would welcome your input into
this activity as well as your help in identifying models that have worked in PPPs in basic
education.