Shaping the Shift

Adriana Balducci, Head of Programmes in Development, the Education Outcomes Fund

A moment to redesign

Some moments in development are incremental. Others create the conditions for something more fundamental: not simply improving programmes, but rethinking how systems are financed and delivered.

Namibia is approaching the latter.

Recently reclassified as a lower-middle-income country, it has begun to reassess the role of early childhood care and education (ECCE) within its broader development strategy. Public investment currently stands at around 3% of the education budget. The government’s intention to raise this to 10% reflects a growing recognition that early learning sits at the core of long-term human capital formation.

At the same time, responsibility for early childhood development will shift from the Ministry of Gender to the Ministry of Education by 2027. Such institutional realignments are often treated as administrative detail. In practice, they tend to reshape incentives, priorities and, crucially, the way money flows through a system.

Beyond spending more

Higher spending, on its own, rarely guarantees better outcomes.

Namibia is no exception. While public investment in ECCE is set to increase, there is already a recognition – within government and among technical partners – that existing expenditure is not consistently translating into improved child development outcomes.

Feeding programmes, for example, account for a significant share of spending. Yet their contribution to broader developmental outcomes remains uneven, and accountability mechanisms are still evolving. At the same time, persistent challenges in quality, learning readiness and nutrition – particularly high levels of stunting – point to gaps that additional funding alone is unlikely to close.

The conversation, as a result, is beginning to shift. The question is no longer simply how much is invested, but how effectively those resources are used.

Designing for outcomes

Against this backdrop, Namibia is considering a different approach – one that places outcomes at the centre of financing decisions.

Working with EOF and partners, the government has moved beyond exploration and formally committed to developing an outcomes fund for early childhood development. Following the initial scoping phase, the Ministry of Education confirmed its intention to proceed into design and implementation, alongside a financial commitment of at least $6m over three years.

Such a transition would reshape the mechanics of the system. Subsidies to community-based centres would be linked to verified results, channelled through government systems, and embedded within existing legal and procurement frameworks. Over time, the intention is for these mechanisms to be fully owned and operated by the state, rather than dependent on external structures.

Mobilising capital differently

Designing such a system depends not only on policy choices, but on how capital is mobilised and combined.

In Namibia, government commitment provides the foundation. Domestic resources are expected to play a central role in financing the transition. Yet, as in many contexts, public funding alone is unlikely to absorb the risks associated with system reform.

An outcomes partnership brings together different forms of capital, each serving a distinct function: public funding, which anchors the system and signals long-term ownership; philanthropic capital, which absorbs early uncertainty and supports experimentation; and international financing, which can scale approaches once they demonstrate results.

In Namibia, this international support is best understood not as long-term substitution, but as catalytic investment: helping to finance the transition towards a system that government intends to own and operate over time. In a context where many donors are increasingly focused on avoiding long-term dependency, this model offers a clearer proposition: external funding as a time-bound enabler of reform, rather than a permanent fixture.

Namibia’s active local private sector adds a further dimension. Domestic funders are well placed to bridge local priorities and international capital, helping to align currently fragmented investments and build a more coherent ecosystem around shared objectives.

At the same time, discussions are under way to connect this effort to larger multilateral financing platforms. Namibia has formally expressed interest in joining the Global Partnership for Education (GPE), with early engagement pointing to potential access to instruments such as the GPE Multiplier and programme development grants.

If realised, such alignment would extend the financing base beyond individual partnerships, linking domestic reform efforts to broader international capital flows.

Learning from practice

 

Namibia’s approach is informed by experience elsewhere.

Engagement with South Africa’s Department of Basic Education has provided insight into how outcomes-based financing can support institutional transition. In that context, the model was introduced as part of a broader effort to realign the system around results, rather than as a standalone intervention.

Namibia’s interest in adapting this approach suggests a similar ambition: to align financing with the direction of system change, rather than treating it as a parallel mechanism.

Building systems, not projects

A central element of the emerging partnership is the strengthening of national monitoring and evaluation systems.

This includes the adoption of common measurement tools, the training of government inspectors alongside independent enumerators, and the gradual development of in-house capacity to measure and manage results.

Over time, this would allow the government not only to oversee outcomes-based subsidies, but to integrate evidence more systematically into decision-making.

A similar logic is beginning to emerge in procurement. High-expenditure areas such as nutrition are increasingly being viewed through an outcomes lens, with a view to improving both effectiveness and accountability.

A system in the making

What stands out in Namibia is not any single reform, but the alignment of several elements: political commitment, institutional transition, openness to new approaches, and a willingness among partners to work together.

Such alignment is rare. When it does occur, it creates the conditions for more than incremental change. It opens the possibility of reshaping how a sector functions – how it is financed, how it is managed, and how results are defined.

Realising that potential will take time. System-level change rarely follows a straight line. But the direction is becoming clearer.

From partnership to platform

For EOF, this is what partnership development increasingly involves.

The work is not about introducing pre-defined models, but about working with governments to design financing approaches that reflect national priorities, build institutional capacity, and bring different sources of capital into alignment.

In Namibia, that process is still unfolding. Even so, its trajectory is visible: a gradual shift from inputs to outcomes, from fragmented initiatives to coordinated action, and from short-term funding cycles to longer-term investment in results.

The implications extend beyond a single country.

In a more constrained global financing environment, the central question is no longer just how much capital can be mobilised. It is how that capital is structured and used.

Namibia offers a glimpse of one way forward – less through new instruments than through a reconsideration of how the system itself is organised.