Gender and Education for All THE LEAP TO EQUALITY

Appendix 3

Matching the CRS and DAC databases The CRS (Creditor Reporting System) database is a comprehensive list of individual transactions by year and by country. It provides more detailed information than the DAC (OECD Development Assistance Committee) database. Its project-by-project information allows exploration of areas where DAC proves to be rather rigid. This includes the following: - analysis of the different subsectors such as ‘unspecified’ education; - identification of education components within other sectors (i.e. medical training); - analysis of the regional distribution of bilateral education aid. The CRS has not been used in other major studies on aid flows to education. This is because it formerly covered only a small proportion of the aid included in the DAC database (Bentall et al., 2001; UNESCO, 2002). In 1990, only 24% of bilateral education commitments were included in the CRS. However, coverage has been increasing since the beginning of the 1990s, thereby making the use of CRS data increasingly feasible. For example, its coverage amounted to 80% of all education aid in 2000 (as reported by DAC) and 77% in 2001 ( Table A3.1). The table also shows that many of the differences between the CRS and DAC databases arise from a small number of countries. Some countries with very small programmes of aid to education and low CRS coverage (e.g. Greece) have little impact on the final coverage levels in the CRS database, whereas large providers, such as Japan and France, have a very significant impact. The low coverage of these two countries can be entirely explained by their lack of reporting technical cooperation data to the CRS. In the case of Japan, this can be remedied by adding in the education technical cooperation which it reports separately to DAC. This results in CRS coverage for Japan of 100% in 2000 and 83% in 2001. By consequence, the overall coverage for DAC countries was 97% in 2000 and 89% in 2001. Although when the adjustment is made CRS and DAC databases do not perfectly match, an average of 93% for the biennium 2000–01 is adequate enough to consider the CRS database as a valuable source for aid analysis.