Filling the gaps: the role and impact of international non-governmental organisations in ‘Education for All’

This article discusses the involvement of international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) in transnational education policy-making, with particular reference to the global initiative Education for All (EFA). EFA is a policy process carried out by international governmental organisations (IGOs) with the main aim to achieve basic education for all children, youth and adults. A participant in this process since 2000 is the Global Campaign for Education (GCE), an advocacy network of INGOs, established jointly by Oxfam, ActionAid International, Education International and Global March Against Child Labour. This article examines the role and impact of these advocacy INGOs in EFA, in terms of the structural conditions created by the current mode of ‘global governance’ in education. In its first section, this article draws a conceptual framework purported to illuminate the way transnational policy in education is produced. The main part investigates the role and impact of the GCE in EFA. Overall, this article challenges the common perception about INGOs, that they are democratising agents in transnational education policy, as the latter is structurally undemocratic.