One Goal: Education And…Football for All?

CGD friend Alcyone Vasconcelos, Senior Education Specialist at the Education for All – Fast Tack Initiative (EFA-FTI) (an international partnership of developing country governments and donors to make progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education by 2015), brought to our attention a very interesting idea: a campaign to support education for all linked with the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.The Global Campaign for Education has announced a campaign called “1-Goal: Education for All” through which they plan to engage footballers (soccer players to our American friends) all around the world in campaigning for education. Alcyone proposes that as a part of the campaign, footballers, home teams, tv stations, and/or fans can agree to pay a certain amount of money for each goal a player or team makes, and the funding collected can support the efforts of the EFA-FTI. (We would add that such an innovative pool of funds be used to try an innovative method for delivering funds for education – Cash on Delivery Aid – but more on that another time.)Perhaps this will be the next big idea for an innovative financing mechanism for development (international solidarity levies on airline tickets were among the latest “it” things). If any agencies/campaigns are interested in trying this, let me know.