I'm working through some of your blogs as part of my research. This is a nice analysis of OBF which aligns closely with my own. In 2019, I wrote a 40+ item list of ways in which OBF could backfire (for EOF) and I like to think their approach has evolved to take some of that into account. When I was leading PCF we funded both the pre-SLEIC pilot and the QEI DIB via UBS.
Three additional thoughts:
1) Some of the latest education OBF approaches are introducing a balanced score card type accountability structure where system strengthening milestones are included alongside learning outcomes. I think that's a key innovation and further increases the likelihood of long-run success.
2) Having the local government leading the commissioning process and playing a role in it as a partial outcomes payer is also key for the change to stick and drive longer term gains.
3) One benefit of OBF that you didn't mention but that I think is key, is that when done well, it can force up-front system alignment in a multi-stakeholder environment. Alignment has multiple benefits including reducing the risk that the local ministry of education is overloaded managing a large number of third-party providers while increasing the likelihood that the best of the implementers' work is taken to scale via government in the future.
There are other ways to achieve the same goal (I'm working on one idea for this) but OBF has done this better than the random funding of NGOs even where that funding is unrestricted.
Hi John, thanks for this. A 40 item list ! Wish I'd had that before writing this piece. I think my fundamental critiques remain and I am maybe not as positive as you though I recognise that in such straitened times any funding is welcome. But, it's a complex way of doing something pretty simple (scaling restricted) and I don't see any MoF agreeing to be an outcomes payer at a significant level. So, it will continue to be externally driven, and providers and their financiers will only play if they can limit risk, so innovation will be curtailed. I also don't agree with "random" funding of NGOs either - but that's where working with MoE's to manage external support is the better strategy perhaps.
“Is one of the downsides of focusing so heavily on outcomes… that other education outcomes, less easy to measure perhaps, are deprioritized, if not lost completely?”
The above resonated with me, and was the source of some challenges and frustrations in deploying RBF dollars that had great ambitions.
Thanks Karim for this comment. Inevitably, if focus narrows to learning outcomes (and those are themselves narrowly defined) then much that is important, but hard to easily measure, about education and the development of the child, gets either de-prioritised or overlooked. EOF claims to have a broader view of "outcomes" and in India the Educate Girls work is focused on access and retention of girls allowing for more qualitative assessments - but....OBF by it's nature is about focus. Given the truly awful state of children's learning worldwide I have sympathy for an approach that asks everyone concentrate on getting the basics right.
Thanks for sharing your analysis of OBF, Andy. It's very timely you have researched and published this just at the moment when conventional aid flows to education and other sectors are in such short and fragile supply.
You're not wrong about governments having an opportunity to lean in, but by some measures they only account for perhaps 15% of global wealth now - which is around half of the proportion when we started out back in the day! So it's the challenge of unlocking the other c 85% of private corporations' and individuals' wealth that we all need to work on, in my view...
Hi Andy,
I'm working through some of your blogs as part of my research. This is a nice analysis of OBF which aligns closely with my own. In 2019, I wrote a 40+ item list of ways in which OBF could backfire (for EOF) and I like to think their approach has evolved to take some of that into account. When I was leading PCF we funded both the pre-SLEIC pilot and the QEI DIB via UBS.
Three additional thoughts:
1) Some of the latest education OBF approaches are introducing a balanced score card type accountability structure where system strengthening milestones are included alongside learning outcomes. I think that's a key innovation and further increases the likelihood of long-run success.
2) Having the local government leading the commissioning process and playing a role in it as a partial outcomes payer is also key for the change to stick and drive longer term gains.
3) One benefit of OBF that you didn't mention but that I think is key, is that when done well, it can force up-front system alignment in a multi-stakeholder environment. Alignment has multiple benefits including reducing the risk that the local ministry of education is overloaded managing a large number of third-party providers while increasing the likelihood that the best of the implementers' work is taken to scale via government in the future.
There are other ways to achieve the same goal (I'm working on one idea for this) but OBF has done this better than the random funding of NGOs even where that funding is unrestricted.
Hi John, thanks for this. A 40 item list ! Wish I'd had that before writing this piece. I think my fundamental critiques remain and I am maybe not as positive as you though I recognise that in such straitened times any funding is welcome. But, it's a complex way of doing something pretty simple (scaling restricted) and I don't see any MoF agreeing to be an outcomes payer at a significant level. So, it will continue to be externally driven, and providers and their financiers will only play if they can limit risk, so innovation will be curtailed. I also don't agree with "random" funding of NGOs either - but that's where working with MoE's to manage external support is the better strategy perhaps.
“Is one of the downsides of focusing so heavily on outcomes… that other education outcomes, less easy to measure perhaps, are deprioritized, if not lost completely?”
The above resonated with me, and was the source of some challenges and frustrations in deploying RBF dollars that had great ambitions.
Thanks Karim for this comment. Inevitably, if focus narrows to learning outcomes (and those are themselves narrowly defined) then much that is important, but hard to easily measure, about education and the development of the child, gets either de-prioritised or overlooked. EOF claims to have a broader view of "outcomes" and in India the Educate Girls work is focused on access and retention of girls allowing for more qualitative assessments - but....OBF by it's nature is about focus. Given the truly awful state of children's learning worldwide I have sympathy for an approach that asks everyone concentrate on getting the basics right.
Thanks for sharing your analysis of OBF, Andy. It's very timely you have researched and published this just at the moment when conventional aid flows to education and other sectors are in such short and fragile supply.
You're not wrong about governments having an opportunity to lean in, but by some measures they only account for perhaps 15% of global wealth now - which is around half of the proportion when we started out back in the day! So it's the challenge of unlocking the other c 85% of private corporations' and individuals' wealth that we all need to work on, in my view...
Very interesting piece !
Thanks Mathilde, glad you liked it!