USAID has released a draft whole-of-government strategy on international basic education and will be accepting feedback on the draft strategy from July 17th to July 22nd. The BEC Board of Directors will meet with USAID Senior Coordinator for Basic Education Julie Cram on Thursday, July 19th to provide in-person feedback and analysis on the draft strategy. If your organization has additional feedback to share with USAID, please feel free to submit written comments to Kirby (khenslee@basiced.org) or Beth (bjohnson@basiced.org) by 3:00 PM on Wednesday, July 18th.
On June 13, 2018 the State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Subcommittee in the House of Representatives provided $800,000,000 in funding for basic education in the Fiscal Year 2019 State, Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill. Of the $800,000,000 allocated to basic education, $90,000,000 is made available for multilateral support.
As part of an effort to drive program decision-making and design towards the field with more efficient and innovative technical support, USAID has proposed moving the Office of Education into a new Bureau for Development, Democracy, and Innovation (DDI).
Last week, the House Foreign Affairs Committee passed the Women's Entrepreneurship and Economic Empowerment Act out of Committee. This bill, introduced by Representatives Royce and Frankel, would require that all USAID strategies, projects, and activities are shaped by gender analysis and use standardized indicators.
Now that funding for fiscal year 2018 has been finalized, Congress has begun work on FY 2019 Appropriations Bills. We've been working with allies in the House and Senate on Dear Colleague letters to Members of Congress on the Appropriations Committees that call for robust funding for international basic education.
The State-Foreign Operations portion of the final FY18 omnibus spending bill slightly reduces the overall international affairs funding to $54 billion compared to the FY17 level of $57.5 billion. FY18 funding for international basic education is protected at $800 million, which is level to the FY17 final enacted level.
The Basic Education Coalition (BEC) applauds Congressional leaders for passing the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018. We are especially grateful to Ranking Member Lowey (D-NY), Chairman Frelinghuysen (R-NJ), and SFOPs Subcommittee Chairman Rogers (R-KY) for their work on the Appropriations Committee to provide robust support for international basic education in fiscal year 2018.