The NYT has a good article today on the surge in primary school enrollment in sub-Saharan Africa. It points out that after stagnating for nearly two decades, primary school enrollment rates have begun to soar across sub-Saharan Africa. While the article includes much useful information (including the problems providing adequate classroom space, textbooks, and teachers for so many students) it leaves out a very important element in this story. It fails to mention the importance of public protests and pressure from non-governmental organizations in forcing the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to change their policy in this area. Prior to 1998, it was common to include clauses requiring fees for primary school enrollment in the structural agreements that countries signed to get loans from these institutions. The fees would improve a country's financial situation by both raising revenue and reducing enrollment, and therefore the need to pay for public education. Fees for primary education and basic health care were a primary target of the protest movement of the late 90s. In a bill reauthorizing funding for the IMF, they managed to get Congress to include a provision requiring the U.S. representatives to these institutions to actively oppose any loan that included such fees as a condition. They also kept up the pressure after the fact when the I.M.F. reached an agreement with Tanzania that included a provision for charging fees for primary school enrollment. (The Treasury tried some Clintonian nonsense to claim that the provision in the IMF reauthorization bill effectively had no meaning. Congress refused to accept that it depends on what your definition of "is" is.) While it is just a first step, it is great to see that millions of children will at least now get a chance to go to school. But, we should be clear about the history of this development. It was not just the wisdom of international donors. The change came about in large part because of noisy and sometimes obnoxious and disruptive protests and the persistance of the outsiders in trying to get the "experts" to think differently. [Full disclosure: Robert Naiman, who worked at the Center for Economic and Policy Research at the time, did much of the background research on the Tanzania loan for the NGOs that pressed the issue with Congress.]
--Dean Baker
