Missing the target? Government commitment to education sector funding in Sub-Saharan Africa 2000–2023

Abstract

It is assumed (at least implicitly) that the SDG4 Education for All targets are unlikely to be achieved unless governments commit at least 20% of total government expenditure to the education sector. This article focuses, therefore, on analysing medium-long term trends in the education funding share (EFS) for 40 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa since 2000. The two main conclusions are that the EFS is currently above 20% in less than 10% of these countries and that the EFS has been steadily declining in around half of all countries in SSA.