As Nigeria and other African nations battle growing learning crises and dwindling public funding, a newly released policy brief from IIEP-UNESCO and Agence Française de Development (AFD) is calling for a radical shift in how global education aid is delivered. Titled “Renewing the Promise of Development Effectiveness for Transforming Education,” the June 2025 report argues that international funding must align more closely with national systems to yield sustainable impact.
Since the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness in 2005, education funding has remained stubbornly inefficient despite global recognition of its importance. Country programmable aid (CPA) for education has only increased by a modest 12% in two decades and has flatlined since 2016. The issue isn’t just limited aid, it’s how that aid is managed. In 2023 alone, 50% of low-income countries had to coordinate over 25 implementing agencies each, leading to bureaucratic overload and high transaction costs.
This inefficiency directly affects Nigeria’s education sector. Despite receiving substantial donor support, Nigeria still has over 10.5 million out-of-school children the highest in the world according to UNICEF (2024). Fragmented donor projects often bypass the Ministry of Education’s financial structures, weakening institutional capacity and reducing long-term benefits. In effect, foreign education aid may be doing more to serve short-term visibility projects than creating resilient, inclusive education systems.
The UNESCO-AFD briefly challenges this model, showing that 80% of education aid now comes in the form of project-based financing, which rarely leverages or strengthens country systems. By contrast, budget support and pooled funds, which align more closely with national education plans, accounted for just 9% of CPA in 2023. Nigeria’s Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), for instance, has proven to be an effective domestic funding mechanism, but it operates largely in isolation from international donors.
One of the report’s most striking revelations is that the reluctance to use national systems is not rooted in technical weakness. In fact, 65% of countries including 57% of low-income nations have improved their public financial management (PFM) systems since 2011. Nigeria, for example, has made significant strides in budget transparency through the implementation of the Open Treasury Portal and Performance-Based Budgeting under the Ministry of Finance.
Côte d’Ivoire and Madagascar are cited as models for effective donor alignment. In Côte d’Ivoire, harmonized donor support has helped introduce universal pre-school and teaching reforms tailored to foundational literacy. In Madagascar, a multi-donor pooled fund supports over 33,000 public schools, streamlining service delivery from primary to technical education. These examples suggest a path forward for Nigeria, where state-level education ministries often struggle with fragmented and overlapping foreign-funded programs.
The brief outlines four strategic priorities to fix the problem: 1) place governments in leadership roles, 2) gradually increase the use of national PFM systems, 3) utilize data and evaluations for joint accountability, and 4) integrate effectiveness principles into the global financing architecture. This approach shifts education from a donor-driven exercise to a national development strategy anchored in local systems.
For Nigeria, adopting this strategy would require better coordination between the Federal Ministry of Education, state-level authorities, and the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC). UBEC currently disburses funds to states on a matching grant basis, but disbursement is slow due to weak data systems and accountability gaps. Aligning donor support with these national structures could reduce duplication and improve results, particularly in rural and conflict-affected regions.
The brief also raises a critical point about the link between funding and Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education. Nigeria’s National Policy on Education (2020 revision) identifies lifelong learning and ICT-based instruction as key reforms, but these require long-term investment. Fragmented projects often lack the timeline and commitment needed to build sustainable teacher training, curriculum reform, or digital infrastructure.
Crucially, the report urges donors to rethink not just funding levels but funding philosophy to treat aid as a complement, not a substitute, for domestic education financing. As Nigeria ramps up discussions on education budgeting for 2026, integrating international aid with federal and state priorities will be crucial for maximizing impact. It is not about reviving old aid models, but about modernizing development financing for today’s geopolitical and fiscal realities.
With elections around the corner and increasing youth disenchantment over unemployment and lack of opportunities, improving how education is financed could be a political and economic game-changer. Nigeria already has the human potential; what’s needed now is a systemic strategy that brings development financing, domestic commitment, and institutional capacity together in pursuit of a shared national goal.
In sum, the UNESCO-AFD brief is not just a global call, it is a direct challenge to Nigerian policymakers, donors, and educators to rethink how we fund the future. The time for cosmetic fixes is over. Only a harmonized, data-driven, and country-led financing system can unlock the full power of education in Nigeria and across Africa.
