french translation of: Why education financing can no longer be separated from debt and tax justice
Brought together in a Learning Collaborative, civil society organisations from 18 African countries developed a united approach to education financing advocacy — one that places debt relief and tax justice at the very centre of the fight for quality public education.
« Any country spending more on debt servicing than on education should be prioritised for debt restructuring and cancellation. » This challenge sat at the heart of discussions during the final gathering of the Education Finance Learning Collaborative in Nairobi during Global Action Week for Education 2026. It reflected a broader shift that had taken place over the previous 18 months: moving beyond education budgets alone to examine the wider political and economic systems that determine whether governments can deliver quality, equitable education for all.
Over the past 18 months, national education coalitions and civil society organisations from 18 countries across Africa have come together through the Education Finance Learning Collaborative, facilitated by Action Aid, one of Education Out Loud’s partners. The purpose was to strengthen evidence-based advocacy for increased, more equitable and more sustainable financing for public education. Through online learning, action research, peer exchange and a final face-to-face convening in Nairobi, participants explored not only how much governments spend on education, but also the wider factors that shape education financing.
When debt crowds out education
The journey began earlier, in 2023, when Education Out Loud grantees from across the West & Central Africa region identified a shared need to strengthen civil society capacity on education financing and deepen understanding of the political and economic forces shaping education budgets across the continent. As Cheikh Mbow of Senegal’s National Education Coalition, COSYDEP, reflected: « Despite diverse linguistic and national contexts, education financing was identified as a universal challenge. »
The content of the learning collaborative was grounded in 4Ss framework developed by ActionAid, with the concepts of Share, Size, Sensitivity and Scrutiny supporting participants to better understand not only the importance of how much is allocated to education, but also whether those amounts are sufficient and equitably distributed in ways that effectively deliver free, quality, inclusive education.
Initial discussions focused on standard education financing benchmarks, however, as discussions evolved, it became clear that debt servicing is consuming a growing share of national budgets. Across sub-Saharan Africa, debt pressures are intensifying rapidly. Some countries are now spending up to four times as much on debt servicing as on education. As Diana Mochoge of the Africa Debt Justice Network noted in our webinar on debt and education: « Debt servicing is directly impacting education across the African continent in a number of very real ways. »
The Civil Society Budget Advocacy Group (CSBAG)’s analysis of Uganda illustrated the scale of the challenge. Debt servicing consumed almost half of government revenues in 2024/25, while education’s share of the budget fell from an already low 8.7% to just 6.9% over four years. Debt servicing was also growing nearly twice as fast as the overall national budget.
The tax revenues that never reach classrooms
The Collaborative also explored how weak and unjust tax systems limit public budgets, preventing countries from mobilising the domestic resources needed to invest in education. Discussions highlighted that combating global tax abuse, alongside progressive reforms to taxation, including on wealth, could generate significant new resources for public services – helping to guarantee education for more than 72 million out-of-school children and fund the recruitment of the 13 million teachers needed globally to address the teacher shortage crisis.
The Collaborative also created space for coalitions to engage more deeply with tax justice. MEPT, Mozambique’s national education coalition, shared its experience of megaproject tax exemptions, highlighting how governments continue to lose vast public revenues through harmful incentives and illicit financial flows despite significant natural resource wealth. MEPT’s analysis shows the sheer scale of losses linked to harmful tax incentives and illicit financial flows and the impact this has on education financing. As Luis Mutondo observed: « The resources lost through tax exemptions and illicit financial flows could fund more than 63,000 classrooms. »
Similarly, SWANCEFA shared Eswatini’s work on trade misinvoicing and profit shifting, demonstrating how multinational corporations use loopholes within the global financial system to shift profits out of African countries — draining resources that could otherwise fund schools, teachers and inclusive education systems. As Thulani Lushaba of SWANCEFA reflected: « Africa has the resources — the challenge is ensuring countries benefit from them. »
The learning journey also challenged assumptions about what education budgets themselves reflect. Sessions on « Sensitivity » explored how financing decisions can reinforce or reduce inequalities related to gender, disability, geography, poverty and exclusion. A recurring reflection across the Collaborative was that inclusion must be built into budgets, not added later.
Participants reflected that education budgets are never neutral: they shape who is prioritised, who is excluded, and whose needs remain invisible.
At the same time, discussions on « Scrutiny » reinforced that allocation alone does not guarantee delivery. Through experiences shared by the Ghana CLEAR Consortium and Adda Girls’ Initiative in Nigeria (part of the wider CSACEFA coalition), participants explored how community monitoring, expenditure tracking and citizen accountability approaches can help ensure that financing actually reaches schools and learners. As Samira Galadima reflected: « Does the money actually arrive in full, on time, and where it is needed? »
These discussions reinforced that, as COSYDEP’s work on the « Share » pillar demonstrated, allocating 20% of national budgets to education is not always enough to deliver quality and equitable education. They also highlighted the importance of initiatives such as the work in Benin to track who is benefiting from education financing — and who is still being left behind.
Starting from what quality actually costs
Another important strand of the Collaborative focused on Brazil’s Cost of Quality Education per Student (CAQi) approach, which asks a simple but transformative question: what does quality education really cost?
The approach helped participants think differently about education financing. Rather than starting from existing budget limitations, CAQi begins from the conditions needed to deliver quality education. In doing so, it reflects a rights-based approach that starts from the obligation to use the maximum available resources to realise the right to education.
As Adriana Dragone Silveira of the Brazilian Campaign for the Right to Education explained: « Quality in mass education begins before the classroom, with infrastructure, resources, and working conditions that let meaningful learning take root. »
Inspired by this approach, the Brazilian Campaign supported four members of the Learning Collaborative from Cabo Verde, Eswatini, Mozambique and Uganda to pilot the methodology in their own countries. While each country took a slightly different approach, all were guided by the same core idea: we need to understand what quality education costs and use that evidence to advocate for the level of public investment required to deliver it.
At the end of the more than one-year process, participants recently came together in Nairobi. When participants met face-to-face, they reflected that one of the most important outcomes of the Learning Collaborative was the development of a shared political analysis linking education financing to debt, taxation, inequality and wider struggles for economic justice. The process reinforced that this is not simply about increasing education budgets in isolation, but about understanding the systems that determine whether education rights can become a reality.
One participant captured the spirit of the convening simply: « We had one voice. »
The final evaluation reflected overwhelmingly positive feedback from participants, with 95% rating the Collaborative as either « High Value » or « Extremely High Value ». Many described shifts not only in technical understanding, but also in how they approach advocacy — moving from experience-based messaging towards more evidence-informed and strategically aligned action.
Cross-country solidarity and relationship-building emerged as one of the strongest outcomes of the process. As one participant reflected: « This Learning Collaborative has given birth to a network of CSOs working in education financing. »