7 and 8 June 2010,
Stockholm, Sweden.

The International Working Group on Education (IWGE) is an informal group of aid agencies and foundations.

Donor agencies, foundations and education stakeholders met in Stockholm to shape new ideas on redesigning national strategies and the global aid architecture.

The theme for the 2010 meeting was Financing education: redesigning national strategies and the global aid architecture. The discussions focused on the strategies for the financing of education, taking into account the implications of EFA at the post-primary level of education and the implications of the current economic crisis on public funding of education. There were some presentations on the global picture and regional scenarios, with particular emphasis on Africa and Asia.

The meeting was hosted by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida).

The participants agreed that while post-primary education and training is a great challenge facing Africa and Asia education systems, this same challenge is even more crucial for rural people since the majority of them do not have access to these further levels of education, due to the persisting urban rural education gap in primary education and present policies and financing choices.

The graphic below shows the disparities by urban-rural residence: Overall, primary school attendance rates are higher in urban than rural areas. Greatest disparities in Niger, Burkina Faso, Guinea and Ethiopia.