A STRATEGY TO PROMOTE REFORM

Claudio de Moura Castro, the strategy’s principal author and the IDB’s chief education advisor, emphasizes that the document was not put forward as a rigid blueprint but rather as a series of guidelines based on analytical concepts and data that can help the Bank identify partners interested in the sort of reforms it is prepared to support. These are some of the paper’s main points:

Focus on quality: The IDB rejects both the notion that the state should play a marginal role in higher education as well as the view that higher education can only play its role properly if it is showered with more public funds. Quality and efficiency must be the central issues, no matter who provides the service.

Build on local initiatives: The impetus for reform in higher education must come from the Bank’s local partners: regional associations, governments, academic institutions, civil society groups, private sector firms and individuals.

Complement the private sector: The Bank’s lending should be targeted carefully to activities that make economic sense. It must finance activities that generate benefits that market forces on their own would not produce, or that represent a social priority that cannot depend on support from the private sector. By the same token, the Bank will avoid those areas that already do attract enough private funding.

Support reform: Higher education loans should help implement key reforms or support programs that can help countries to restructure or reorganize their higher education systems, build sound management systems and establish solid ties beween incentives and governance.

Promote equity: The IDB will support initiatives that promote greater equity, such as scholarship programs for needy students and financing for institutions in
poor areas.

The text of the IDB’s higher education strategy paper can be viewed at www.iadb.org/sds/.