A responsibility to the rest of the world

How best to translate financial aid into education is the subject of a roundtable discussion next week at New York University Abu Dhabi, Mitya Underwood reports

Children at the Donje Rosulje Kindergarten School in Bosnia receive aid through the UAE organisation Dubai Cares, which has partnered with UNICEF to formulate pre-school development programmes. Razan Alzayani / The NationalShow less

When the United Nations drew up its list of Millennium Development Goals (MDG)to eradicate poverty, the 2015 deadline seemed generous. But, as of this month, that deadline is just two years away and the consensus among world leaders is that the work is by no means done.

The eight goals – which range from reducing child mortality to combatting HIV/Aids and malaria – each contain a number of targets, some of which have been reached, while others remain elusive.

One such is the commitment to universal primary education, which will be the subject of a public roundtable discussion at the New York University Abu Dhabi, moderated by J Lawrence Aber, the Willner Family Professor in Psychology and Public Policy at NYU. The Humanitarian and Development Aid for the World’s Children: Perspectives from the UAE event at 6.30 to 8pm this Wednesday (January 8) will focus on how aid can be used most effectively to promote children’s education and development in the post-2015 era.

“The post-2015 goals are being debated now and are critically important to get right,” Abner writes from New York. “The challenge facing the global community post-2015 is different from the MDG challenge.

“It is easier to ensure all children access to primary education than it is to ensure that all children actually learn. This challenge requires the kind of rigorous and relevant research that we hope to promote at this workshop.”

The key to translating financial donations into programmes that will actually improve the quality of children’s education and promote social-emotional development in the future is to use the best evidence-based, scientific approaches available today, Abner says.

“The workshop will bring together a broad and interdisciplinary group of researchers and program developers who together are identifying ‘evidence-based’ strategies together with representatives of NGOs who strive to take such approaches to scale.”

In addition to targeted research, funding will be critical and the UAE is rare in the current economic climate for its continuing commitment to financial aid. According to the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the emirates has contributed more than Dh255bn in loans, grants and assistance for development projects in almost 100 countries over the past 35 years. And a further Dh100bn has been made available through the IMF and the World Bank. In 2012, the UAE was the world’s 16th-largest donor of foreign aid, spending Dh5.83 billion in 137 countries, according to the OECD.

Post 2015, leadership and funding will be a powerful combination. “The UAE has committed to expanding its humanitarian and development aid at a time when many other nations of the world are pulling back,” Abner writes. “UAE leadership will be invaluable in generating the resources to address the post-2015 development goals like ‘learning for all’.”

The UAE’s resources currently flow through organisations such as Dubai Cares, set up in 2007 and now one of the most prolific philanthropic organisations in the country. Launched by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, it focuses on goals 2 and 3 – to guarantee universal primary education and to promote gender equality.

It claims to have so far reached out to more than 7 million children, renovated or built more than 1,500 schools and classrooms, distributed more than two million textbooks, and helped 22,500 children get access to fresh water through five Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) schemes. The Emirates Red Crescent has also distributed more than Dh6bn over the last three decades.

The post-2015 era is high on the UN’s own agenda. The UN Secretary General has said that any action plan post-2015 needs to be “bold in ambition yet simple in design”.

“It needs to be rights-based, with particular emphasis on women, young people and marginalised groups,” Ban said at a September 2013 conference. “And it must protect the planet’s resources, emphasise sustainable consumption and production and support action to address climate change.”