Advocate Summary

Issue:  Basic Education
Advocate:  World Learning, Inc.
Date of Interview: 6/24/02

Basic Background
We are working on basic education internationally. Our goal, and it is our because there is a Basic Education Coalition of which we are a part, is to maintain the international focus on basic education and increase U.S. contributions. Our coalition has been involved since it’s inception about a year and a half ago. Education has always been one of the USAID had as part of its portfolio but it was for many years really sort of left out for a variety of reasons, and when I say many years I mean like 20 years, it was though that it was impugning other countries’ sovereignty to be involved as something as close to home as education. People seemed to be frightfully unclear about what they could do but I always thought it was more of an excuse than an argument, a sense that well the World Bank is giving them lots of money we don’t need to do anything else, so for a variety of reasons education was neglected. Eventually people began to wake up to the role that education plays in all other aspects of development. There was an international conference I think between World Bank, Unicef and Unesco, but I’m not quite sure, in 1990 in Thailand. It began to focus international attention on education issues and the need for all countries to be doing more in terms of their own resources to support education and for the international community to support that. So there was an understanding that we have to wake up to this and that is sort of the genesis that led to the coalition. The international attention has been maintained by the G8 countries set up, three years ago now, an education task force. And people here that work on education issues, including my organization, we work on contract to USAID and basic education is one of our areas of emphasis, we looked around and said gee, other areas are much better organized, the international health lobby has really coalesced to become a force on international health issues instead rather than individual organizations. We have not done that on education. 

People suddenly said well gee other things don’t seem to be working and why do things work better in some countries than in others. Well, they work better in East Asia because you’ve got 85 percent of the population literate, duh. There was very clear data and very clear arguments years ago, the example used to be Sri Lanka, which had very high literacy rates, and consequently had very high indicators that were well above what the norm would have been for countries with that level of per capita income. And that’s the same basic case we’re still making. It’s just that now people are looking and saying well we’ve spent all this money other places and things don’t seem to stick and all the issues that go on with problems of development, now they’re looking at some of these countries where things work better, why do you think that is. And I think the World Bank has been fairly consistent over the years, consistently saying that education is the foundation and the bedrock of all development. And I think it is interesting, why people weren’t more receptive, partly it’s because education doesn’t happen over night, it’s not a quick fix, it’s not a magic bullet and that’s what everybody wanted. At the same time the countries that made a heavy investment 30 years ago in education are seeing huge payoffs.  

Prior Activity on the Issue 
None mentioned.
Advocacy Activities Undertaken
So a number of organizations came together to form the Basic Education Coalition. Through that there has been more focus, there are probably about 3 or 4 members that are the most active but there are 16 total members of the coalition. The most active I would say are, ourselves even though we are relatively small, the Academy for Educational Development, which is actually a host for office space for the coalition staff, which is just a staff of 2, but nevertheless a separate staff, CARE, Christian Children’s Fund has been increasingly active and Save the Children. With this coalition we have tried to get a focus and draw attention to basic education, and we’ve been fairly successful. We are now at the 2003 appropriations, the 2001 I believe the funding level for Basic Education was…it was a hundred million in 00, 135 in 01, and 150 plus 15 in 02, so that alone is very good. At the moment we are much more ambitious, our target is to get the United States to commit to providing a billion dollars. 

So if you’ve seen this morning’s Washington Post there is there is a Sebastian Mallaby column on basic education, that’s one from the coalition. What we’ve been doing most recently is trying to focus attention on the G8, at the end of this week now in Canada, and trying to urge the United States to take an earlier commitment the president made the Millennium Challenge which is foreign aid generally, and focus it more on education. We have had a dear colleague letter in both the House and the Senate and we’ve been circulating that, trying to get signatures. The coalition has sponsored now, for two years, overseas trips for members of Congress. We’ve had a Republican and a Democrat go each year. And they’re actually the one that took the lead in this letter to the president. So they have really done very well in becoming interested and active in the area of basic education which was our hope. It’s not necessarily guaranteed results so we are very pleased. We have also had a fairly steady pattern of visits to members of the appropriations committee. And supporting the highest possible funding level for basic education, and that would be a division between the ideal and the practical.  There’s no way we are going to get a billion dollars this year, and we’re probably never going to get it unless it comes in a presidential request. But there are members in both the House and Senate appropriations committees that are very, very supportive of basic education. 

Future Advocacy Activities Planned
No specific activities mentioned.

Key Congressional Contact(s)/Champions
Probably the most important one is Rep. (Nita) Lowey (D-NY) and strong support also from Nancy closet (?) and then on the Senate side Patrick Leahy (D-VT), so we have well positioned champions, which is nice.

Targets of Direct Lobbying
Primarily the members of the Foreign Operations subcommittees and then secondarily the members of the House and Senate Foreign relations committees. 

Targets of Grassroots Lobbying
None mentioned. 

Coalition Partners: Names/Participants
So a number of organizations came together to form the Basic Education Coalition. Through that there has been more focus, there are probably about 3 or 4 members that are the most active but there are 16 total members of the coalition. The most active I would say are, ourselves even though we are relatively small, the Academy for Educational Development, which is actually a host for office space for the coalition staff, which is just a staff of 2, but nevertheless a separate staff, CARE, Christian Children’s Fund has been increasingly active and Save the Children.  

Other Participants in the Issue Debate
All of the members of the coalition also speak as individuals. Internationally Unicef and UNESCO are both on the scene, although I think the World Bank is the most credible. The Council on Foreign Relations group sponsored a meeting last week that had Education Administrations from four African governments attending and served to, it was a press conference and linked to the World Bank announcement, and there are certainly a number of governments that are looking to strengthen their education programs, and are eager to receive more funding.

Ubiquitous Argument(s) and Evidence
That education is key to all other aspects of development and that it is a cost effective investment, in terms of supporting the rest of the developments. 

Secondary Argument(s) and Evidence
We have developed a white paper and a basic fact sheet and share them. It talks about education’s contribution to health, women’s health, to income generation generally, to basically the links. And it also goes into the possibilities and some success stories in terms of activities that organizations have been successful at. Interestingly, we rarely have to get into the specifics and make the argument because people kind of accept the introduction, you know, “oh, yes, of course education is important.”  So it is very rarely challenged, “who did, what do you mean, show me” it is more “well we certainly agree with you but there’s not enough money to go around for good causes” very quickly the issues come down to a budget one.  

There has been some focus on the staffing and support available within USAID, and getting their staff more focused on basic education at the moment, because the World Bank has also come out with a basic education initiative, which has named 18 plus 5 countries, primarily sub-Saharan Africa, two of the largest countries are in south Asia, where policies are basically in order but much more resources are needed. So we have been urging the United States to fall in line with the multilateral effort; making the argument that if the United States makes the commitment other countries will come forward as well.  

Targeted Arguments, Targets, and Evidence
We try not to target our arguments. It is challenging because most of us who are working on this issue have our connections with the Democrats, and no one wants to say this is a Democratic issue but in general Democrats are more supportive then Republicans, but we really try to present the issue on its merits and get support wherever we can find it. And in fact our dear colleague we focused much more on, well, to get Republican signatures but that’s in part because you have to work a lot harder to get them. 

Nature of the Opposition
No one’s against education it’s just the budget issue. 

So it is very rarely challenged, “who did, what do you mean, show me” it is more “well we certainly agree with you but there’s not enough money to go around for good causes” very quickly the issues come down to a budget one.  I was just trying to get Senator Lugar (R-IN) to sign on to one of the dear colleague letters and the staff person said immediately came after me and was like “of course that’s great but where are you going to get the money from, where are you going to get more money?” and I said well we’ve been very active on the 150 account and that afternoon I heard there was another dear colleague circulating, this having to do with the cross walking of funds to the appropriation’s subcommittee in the Senate, in part with the advocacy of many, many organizations, much broader than ours, and the Senate budget committee had increased the 150 account by 500 million but we still had to get it to the subcommittee, and so there was a letter along those lines, and so I immediately called the staff person back and said are you aware of this letter that Senator Lugar signed on to, as far as I can tell they signed on within 15 minutes, but they never did sign on to the basic education letter.

Ubiquitous Argument(s) and Evidence Articulated by the Opposition 
Not applicable. 

Secondary Argument(s) and Evidence Articulated by the Opposition
Not applicable. 

Targeted Argument(s) and Evidence Articulated by the Opposition (and Targets)
Not applicable. 

Described as a Partisan Issue
It is challenging because most of us who are working on this issue have our connections with the Democrats, and no one wants to say this is a Democratic issue but in general Democrats are more supportive then Republicans, but we really try to present the issue on its merits and get support wherever we can find it. And in fact our dear colleague we focused much more on, well, to get Republican signatures but that’s in part because you have to work a lot harder to get them.

Venue(s) of Activity
House and Senate Foreign Operations subcommittees of the Appropriations Committees
House and Senate Foreign Relations committees

Action Pending or Taken by Relevant Decision Makers
The appropriations bill will be voted on following the recess.

Policy Objective(s) and Support for/Opposition to the Status Quo
Working to increase US contributions to international aid for basic education.

Advocate’s Experience: Tenure in Current Job/Previous Experience
I had known the organization for years and when I retired from the government I very much wanted to do advocacy and thought it would be interesting to sit on the other side of the table, and indeed it is. And a position became available here, I put my name in, and now I’m here. I did foreign aid generally. And staff in the Peace Corp before that, I was regional director for the Asian Pacific program and I was also country director in Bangladesh. 

Reliance on Research: In-House/External (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)
The coalition did the white paper I think, and I don’t even know if it was contracted it might have been voluntary somebody that had retired from the World Bank, but from that the coalition made some changes to it and sent it around. Even now I’d like to see it a little shorter than it is. Many of us have been congressional staff at one point or another and are well aware that making you case succinctly, and right up front so people can grab it and use, is going to get more attention than lots and lots of information. The research for the white paper came from the member organizations, and a lot of World Bank research available, it’s in the public domain. We also now have a partner in the coalition that is a very active force, Gene (?) Spirling, who was on the Clinton White House staff, who initially went to Brookings with a focus on basic education, and is now lead to the Council on Foreign Relations. And he and his public research assistants, are a little more focused on the research side, but at the same time are very much involved in advocacy and are working very closely with the basic education coalition. And since we don’t have a lot of resources, as you’ve probably been told many times, it is very difficult to get outside funding, foundation funding for advocacy work, he’s gotten some funding for the research, and so we are the advocacy side. It’s not impossible and the coalition does have some foundation funding but it is certainly challenging.

I usually leave the fact sheet and the white paper and say if you need more information please let me know, which is what I want to hear. But so far I don’t think we’ve heard, except some specific questions from time to time. Kolbe, Chairman of the Foreign Opps subcommittee was going to be traveling in Ethiopia and “what kind of projects do we have in Ethiopia” – that sort of thing. So we certainly haven’t been overwhelmed with wanting more information and I wouldn’t expect that we would be. It’s the kind of issue that members are quite prepared to grand stand happily. 

Number of Individuals Involved in Advocacy (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)
One, just her, she does all issues.

Units in Organization Involved in Public Affairs/Policy (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)
This office is one part of the broader World Learning organization which is headquartered in Vermont and I’m not sure what the total staff is, we are about 24 people in this office, the projects, office, and then two of our projects have separate offices here in Washington, this is a complicated organization, so maybe 25 people and that includes the international exchange program, GTD – Global Training and Development which is a USAID contract international exchange, and they have a separate office. The organization’s mission very broadly is increasing international understanding and peace building through exchange and cross cultural experience. It started as a high school exchange program, an experiment in international level, so it’s been around since 1932.  And now we have a School for International Training which is a graduate school mainly in international development it offers three or four masters degree in cultural communication and non-governmental organization management, strong emphasis on languages. The organization has been a partner with the peace corps over the years for language development. The Vermont office has legal counsel and it has all the other programs, so it’s large but not huge maybe 300.

Advocate’s Outstanding Skills/Assets (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)
None mentioned.

Type of Membership: None, Institutions, Individuals, Both (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)

Membership Size (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)

Organizational Age (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)

Miscellaneous