Monitoring SDG 4: Education finance
What does the GEM Report do on education financing?
- Since 2002: annual monitoring of aid to education levels.
- Since 2015: Regular costing exercise to calculate the funding gap for achieving education targets.
- Since 2021: annual collaborative reporting on trends in education financing with the World Bank and UIS.
Latest figures
Total education spending by governments, households and donors globally has increased steadily, but this has not led to significant increases in allocations per child. Moreover, funding in LICs is insufficient to overcome their learning deficits.
Globally, total education aid or donors’ official development assistance (ODA) from donor countries reached a record high of US$16.6 billion in 2022, up from US$14.3 billion in 2021, a growth in real terms of 16% t year on year. Nevertheless, the share of total ODA allocated to education decreased from 9.3% in 2019 to 7.6% in 2022. By 2022, ODA accounted for 12.2 % of education funding in LICs (versus 13% in 2021) and just 0.29% of total education funding globally.
There remains an annual finance gap of almost $100 billion per year for countries to reach their education targets by 2030.
Families meanwhile spend significant portions of their funds on education; households cover one-quarter of all education expenditures.
| SDG 4 Targets | GEM Report monitoring chapters | Most recent statistics | GEM Report Blogs |
|---|---|---|---|
| TARGET 4.B: SCHOLARSHIPS | |||
| FINANCE |
Resources
One in three countries did not reach either of the finance benchmarks set in the Education 2030 Framework for Action
Policy focuses
| 2017/8 Report | 2019 Report | 2020 Report | 2021/2 Report | 2023 Report |
|---|---|---|---|---|
