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International assistance plays a non-negligible role in education sector revival
Students Solidarity Trust
May 31, 2011

Budgetary constraints during and post Government of National Unity (GNU) era shall continue to render international aid pivotal in the financing of Zimbabwe's battered education sector. The flow of net official development assistance dwindled in the last two decades due to inter-alia end of cold war; the Zimbabwe Democracy Recovery Act (ZDRA) (2001) sanctions and European Union economic and travel restrictions imposed on Zimbabwe due to her sullied record in governance; tightening of government budgets in donor countries due to recent global financial crisis and growing doubt from both donor and recipient countries over effectiveness of aid all impacting negatively on the education sector. The success of the first phase of the Education Transition Fund (ETF) is a harbinger of better international assistance initiatives to come if the Harare government is to improve its governance record.

The government's dogmatic propaganda platitudes on perceived and real evils of sanctions on the general populace has shifted public attention from mending poor governance record to removal of sanctions, where as, this a case where tit invites tat as has been demonstrated by the international community through awarding progress made in the GNU with the ETF. Two million signatures faked or authentic penned by a willing or trembling hand will come to nullity in bolstering the blather about sanctions, later on improving besmirched governance record to attract removal of sanctions. The unwillingness to implement fully the terms of the Global Political Agreement (GPA) has increased apprehension not only at SADC level but globally that Zimbabwe's governance record will continue to suffer and hence the reluctance to revisit the sanctions by those who imposed them. The view that sanctions affect the ordinary man, bolstered by the extravagant opulence of those living under the sanctions list is viable for political expediency yet detrimental to efforts of attracting development assistance as brainwashed and overzealous underlings use such excuses to further perforate an already tattered governance record.

The Harare government has contested the world view on its clumsy governance image and want to continue to portray itself as a victim of spiteful and mischievous neo-imperialism its crime being its irreproachable conduct of land distribution and black empowerment. A few have attempted to unmask such a see-through thin veil by setting how the government earned itself such an image of governance. According to Kaufman governance is defined as the traditions and institutions by which authority in a country is exercised. This includes the process by which governments are selected, monitored and replaced; the capacity of the government to effectively formulate and implement sound policies; and the respect of citizens and the state for the institutions that govern economic and social interactions among them. A vagabond's bad time reflection in this cold winter season on the political, social and economic events of the past decade will affirm the SADC and global image of Harare government's battered image. To rid off biases in monitoring a country's quality of governance, the world governance indicator has been developed by the World Bank. This indicator is used to assess political and economic institutions in six areas: government effectiveness; voice and accountability; political stability and absence of violence; regulatory quality; rule of law and control of corruption. It makes it possible to establish a percentile rank for all countries in the world, ranging from 0 (weak governance) to 100 (good governance). If Zimbabwe is to be a recipient of international aid, which is much needed for education revival, she has to improve on the above indicators.

The financing gap in the education sector to be filled by international aid is conspicuous to all and sundry and has manifested itself through a drop in construction of buildings in institutions of learning, dilapidation of infrastructure, flight of skilled teaching professionals due to unattractive salaries and working conditions. While on the economic recovery path and with weak public resource collection, government financing of the education sector will remain limited to current expenditure and capital expenditure will be negligible or absent. In this case current expenditure refers to expenditure associated with annually used and consumed items, while capital expenditure refers to expenditure on items that can be used over a longer period of time. As educational services are mostly delivered by teachers and lecturers, their salaries are commonly the main current expenditure item. Non-salary current expenditure covers the rest of the operating costs, which include teaching and learning aids, student loans/grants, operating costs of schools and so on. Capital expenditure includes halls of residence construction, construction of universities and schools.

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