While global rankings may help highlight which countries are getting better returns from their spending on health and education, many others will be unable to improve without additional money.

For a long time, the education world has eyed with some jealousy the transformation of health funding. Since the turn of the millennium, multilateral donors have mobilised billions of additional dollars to tackle infectious diseases and vaccination through the Global Fund to fight Aids, TB and Malaria, and Gavi, the vaccine fund.

Other support has come through an escalation of bilateral support, notably through agencies such as the UK’s Department for International Development, and in the US, the President’s Malaria Initiative and to tackle HIV, Pepfar. Within the healthcare universe, that still leaves the need for greater focus on non-communicable diseases and a wider emphasis on universal health coverage designed to strengthen health systems rather than focus on specific medical conditions.