What’s it about
This guide helps education officials apply Results-Based Financing (RBF) to improve learning outcomes. It explains how poor incentives can undermine progress and how RBF can shift focus to what matters: student learning.
It outlines key drivers of impact—attention, alignment, accountability, flexibility—and explores different RBF models like grants and contracts. Tools like the RISE framework help assess if RBF fits a given context. When well-designed and supported, RBF can boost learning, enrollment, and equity.
When to Use It
- When seeking to learn about the use of RBF in the education space
- Early in a reform process, to explore how RBF could solve persistent education performance issues
- When diagnosing incentive failures using system-thinking tools like RISE
- When designing or scaling RBF pilots or embedding them in national systems
- When seeking to move from small experiments to government-owned, institutionalized reforms