There must be a reason why so many languages carry a version of the same idea: Bir elin nesi var, iki elin sesi var. Many hands make light work. Entre todos se hace mejor. Deux têtes valent mieux qu’une. Kidole kimoja hakivunji chawa. 

Across languages and cultures, the message is the same: progress and impact are not individual acts, but collective ones. 

For outcomes-based financing (OBF), this is not just a philosophical starting point; it is a practical necessity. No single actor holds all the knowledge required to design, implement, and scale outcomes partnerships. Evidence is still emerging. Contexts vary. Incentives are complex. 

If OBF is to move from promising innovation to established practice, it will do so not through isolated efforts, but through shared learning, open exchange, and deliberate ecosystem building – in partnership. 

Surfacing learnings 

This recognition has shaped how we at EOF approach our role in the field. Rather than generating knowledge for OBF in education on our own, we partner with peer organisations to surface, connect, and strengthen the knowledge that already exists.

The starting point is simple: valuable insights are already embedded across programmes, partners and geographies, but they are often fragmented, implicit or difficult to access. Making them visible is the first step towards making them useful. 

One way we have done this is through initiatives designed to capture learnings across actors and contexts. The Collective Learning Initiative on OBF for early childhood care and education is one such example. Since 2024, in partnership with GO Lab and NORRAG, we have brought together practitioners, funders and researchers to reflect on implementation, identify patterns, and articulate lessons that might otherwise remain localised or anecdotal. 

The aim is not to produce definitive answers, but to make the field’s collective experience more legible, more credible and more actionable. 

Capturing knowledge, however, is only part of the task. For learning to contribute to system change, it must also be synthesised – translated into forms that others can engage with, test and adapt. This has required deliberate investment in formats that prioritise accessibility and relevance over completeness. Collaborative blog series developed with partners, alongside EOF’s technical brief series co-developed with subject-matter experts, represent different approaches to this challenge. 

Together, they aim to distil complex, evolving practice into insights that are robust, practical and usable across contexts. 

A consistent lesson emerging from this work is that evidence and good practice in OBF are not built through single studies or isolated evaluations. They are constructed incrementally, through the accumulation and connection of different types of knowledge: quantitative results, implementation experience, contextual understanding and practitioner judgment. 

A vibrant ecosystem is the engine of scale 

Knowledge alone, however, does not shift systems. It must circulate. It must reach the actors who shape policy, allocate resources and design programmes – and create opportunities for them to question and test its relevance for specific challenges. 

This is where a vibrant ecosystem becomes critical. Our approach therefore focuses on strengthening the connections through which knowledge moves, and creating the spaces where ideas can be exchanged, challenged and refined. 

Partnership-based learning groups and working groups play a central role in strengthening these connections. Collaborations such as the Innovative Finance in Education Learning Group with the Education Finance Network, and the Working Group on Innovative Finance in Early Childhood Development with ECDAN, the Education Finance Network and the Brookings Institution, have brought together stakeholders from across the global education ecosystem who would not typically engage with one another. 

These groups have created continuity in dialogue, allowing participants to move beyond one-off exchanges towards more iterative learning, and to build the relationships that underpin future collaboration. 

Beyond these structured platforms, we work with partners to bring OBF into broader global conversations. Engagements at forums such as the World Conference on Early Childhood Care and Education in Tashkent, the Global Education Meeting in Fortaleza, and the Eastern Africa Regional Early Childhood Conference in Dar es Salaam have served as entry points – introducing OBF not as a standalone model, but as part of a wider set of approaches to improving how outcomes are financed and delivered. 

These efforts contribute to a broader shift in how the field approaches scale. Rather than assuming that scale can be achieved by replicating programme models, there is growing recognition that it depends on the strength of the surrounding ecosystem. 

At national, regional and global levels, scaling OBF will be shaped by the availability of shared knowledge, the density of trusting relationships between actors, and the capacity of education systems to absorb and adapt new approaches. 

This, in turn, raises important questions. How can the field continue to build evidence in ways that are both rigorous and responsive to context? How can knowledge be shared more systematically without losing the nuance of implementation experience? And how can partnerships be structured so that learning is not only generated, but used? 

Looking towards 2026 and beyond, the priority is shifting from building initial awareness of OBF towards strengthening its practical viability. This will require continued investment in collective learning – nationally and globally – but also greater attention to how that learning informs decisionmaking within governments, among funders and across delivery organisations. 

It will also require maintaining the openness and humility that have characterised the field’s development to date: an understanding that OBF is still evolving, and that its future will be shaped not by any single organisation, but by the strength of the partnerships that sustain it.