The Challenge:
The world needs more and smarter education finance.
Education is one of the most powerful drivers of progress, yet seven out of ten children in low- and middle-income countries cannot read with understanding by age 10. Meanwhile, half of education programmes show no measurable impact on learning or employment.
Global spending on education is falling short by an estimated $100 billion each year. Traditional approaches have not delivered the transformation required to meet Sustainable Development Goal 4.
EOF was created to address these challenges — by shifting how education is funded, how success is measured, and how systems are held accountable. We are part of a global movement to turn education financing into real learning and employment outcomes, especially for the most disadvantaged children and youth.
70%
of children in low- and middle- income countries can’t read with understanding by age 10.
50%
of education programmes show no measurable impact on learning or employment.
17%
of the targets for SDG 4 (Quality Education) are currently on track to be achieved by the 2030 deadline.
Our Solution:
Results driven education and skills funding. And systems.
The Education Outcomes Fund (EOF) is a global initiative transforming how education and skills are financed and delivered. We partner with governments, donors, investors, and implementers to make education systems more effective, equitable, and accountable.
Through our Outcomes Partnership model, funding is tied to measurable results, aligning incentives across all actors to ensure that resources lead to real improvements in learning and employment outcomes.
EOF’s approach is grounded in systems change: we align incentives, strengthen data and delivery capacity, and foster collaboration across public, private, and social sectors. By embedding results-based principles within national systems, we help governments shift from inputs to outcomes, ensuring that every investment leads to measurable, lasting impact for learners.
Since launching the first fund in Sierra Leone in 2022, and across five new Outcomes Partnerships in Tunisia, Rwanda, South Africa, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone, EOF has mobilised over $130 million, improving education and skills opportunities for more than half a million children and youth. Through this growing portfolio, EOF is building a global movement for smarter education spending — unlocking potential and transforming lives at scale.
We mobilise outcomes capital.
$130M+
raised
We build outcomes partnerships.
500,000+ young beneficiaries
We shift systems.
Moving money, mindsets and mechanisms
Our Programmes:
From intentions to impact. From proof to scale. From projects to policy.
Education is one of the most powerful levers for human progress, but too often, funding fails to translate into learning or jobs. EOF changes that by focusing on what truly matters: results.
We apply Outcomes-Based Financing (OBF), a model where governments and donors pay for verified results, not activities. Impact investors and implementing partners deliver programmes, taking on performance risk and gaining flexibility to innovate. This creates a shared focus across the system — where everyone is accountable for outcomes.
EOF’s programmes span a learning journey — from early childhood to school to work. Each Outcomes Partnership is co-created with governments to ensure national ownership and sustainability.
Following the first fund in Sierra Leone in 2022, EOF is scaling rapidly. In 2025, five new Outcomes Partnerships are being launched in Tunisia, Rwanda, South Africa, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone, mobilising over $130 million to reach more than 500,000 learners.
Early childhood care & education
expanding access and quality for young learners.
Basic education
improving foundational learning, access, and inclusion.
Skills for employment
aligning training with market opportunities and job retention.
Our Impact:
Real gains, lasting change.
EOF’s work is already demonstrating that smarter financing delivers measurable results.
In 2022, the Government of Sierra Leone and EOF launched the Sierra Leone Education Innovation Challenge (SLEIC) – an $18 million effort to prove that a different way of financing education could help transform learning in some of the country’s most challenged primary schools. At its launch, SLEIC was the largest education outcomes fund globally, setting a new benchmark for scale, ambition, and innovation in how learning is financed and delivered.
Results from the randomised controlled trial show that SLEIC schools achieved learning gains stronger than 70% of comparable global programmes. Maths progress was especially striking, improving by 0.280 standard deviations, far above typical effects for large-scale interventions.
SLEIC wasn’t just about learning outcomes. It rewired how organisations work. Providers became more analytical, more adaptive, and more accountable for results: adjusting models year by year, shifting resources, and intensifying coaching based on what the data showed. Teaching practices strengthened, with more structured pedagogy and frequent coaching.
The programme demonstrated that outcomes-based financing can work at national scale, even in a low-income, complex-setting, moving financial risk away from government and towards providers, while maintaining rigorous independent evaluation.
By 2030, EOF aims to reach 2 million children and youth, support 10 governments and 3 development partners in adopting results-based financing, and help education systems worldwide become more effective, equitable, and accountable by design.
100k children learning better.
Students in supported schools are achieving average learning gains that exceed global benchmarks for comparable education programmes.
45% larger impact on girls.
The programme shows larger effects on girls, with an average learning impact 45% larger than on boys. This is particularly striking in literacy, with an impact on girls that this twice as large than on boys.
One extra year of learning.
Independent evaluation shows that children are progressing at a rate equivalent to an additional year of schooling in the best performing sub-Saharan African education systems.
2030 Strategy:
A roadmap for global systems change.
EOF’s 2025-2030 Strategy defines two complementary objectives designed to scale outcomes-based financing and strengthen education systems.
1. Develop Outcomes Partnerships as a lever for transformative systems change
EOF works directly with governments to design and implement large-scale Outcomes Partnerships in education and skills. These partnerships improve learning and employment outcomes while helping countries embed results-based approaches into their own systems.
By 2030, EOF aims to:
- Support 15 active Outcomes Partnerships, reaching 2 million children and youth.
- Achieve 20% more outcomes per dollar spent than comparable programmes.
- Mobilise $350 million for outcomes-based programmes.
2. Build the evidence, tools, and partnerships for outcomes-based financing
EOF is also investing in the broader ecosystem — generating evidence, codifying tools, building communities of practice, and influencing development partners to adopt outcomes-based approaches.
By 2030, EOF aims to:
- Demonstrate the effectiveness and scalability of OBF.
- Streamline and codify the OBF process.
- Enable 10 governments and 3 major development partners to integrate OBF into their own financing frameworks.
Join Us
EOF is looking for champions of innovative financing, from governments and development agencies to philanthropic leaders, and impact investors, who all believe in smarter, fairer, and more effective ways to fund learning.
