Growing concerns about the new Burundian Penal Code have surfaced with the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community in that country opposing the fact that it criminalises homosexuality. The penal code, which was voted in by the National Assembly on 22 November 2008 abolishes death penalty, makes torture, genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity punishable under Burundian law.

This framing paper for an INEE Policy Roundtable provides analysis, lessons learnt and recommendations on the financing of education in states affected by fragility. The paper focuses mainly on aid to education, but also considers it in the context of domestic financing for education. The authors discuss the current state of financing in terms of both official development assistance and humanitarian funding, focusing on the trends and recent commitments to education.

This report argues that while there has been some remarkable progress towards some of the EFA goals since 2000, progress is being undermined by a failure of governments to tackle persistent inequalities based on income, gender, location, ethnicity, language, disability and other markers for disadvantage. Unless governments act to reduce disparities through effective policy reforms, the EFA promise will be broken.

The European Union is financing ecologically and socially destructive projects in Africa, a Brussels conference has been told. Officially, the Luxembourg-based European Investment Bank (EIB) is committed to using the 53 billion euros (67 billion dollars) it releases each year, to pursue policies that protect the environment and alleviate hardship.