Designing for Equity in Outcomes-Based Financing: Lessons from Rwanda’s Early Childhood Outcomes Fund
In this blogpost, which is part of NORRAG’s Financing Education and Early Childhood Education blog series, Ella Wright, drawing on lessons from the ECCE Outcomes Fund in Rwanda, outlines the opportunities and risks of outcomes-based financing in early childhood care and education (ECCE). She explores how the promise of outcomes-based financing can only be realized when inclusion is woven through every stage of its design, from intent to implementation.
Introduction
Across the globe, many children – especially those with disabilities – remain excluded from early childhood care and education (ECCE). Children with disabilities are about 25 per cent less likely to attend early childhood education than their peers, and when they do, they are often unsupported or invisible in data. This early exclusion has lasting consequences: children who miss out on nurturing, play-based learning are less prepared for school and more likely to remain on the margins of society.
At the same time, governments and their partners are experimenting with new ways of financing education. Outcomes-Based Financing (OBF) is one such approach for improving early childhood care and education. Rather than paying for inputs, OBF links funding to independently verified results. Governments, donors, and philanthropic organisations are turning to OBF because it promises greater accountability and a stronger link between investment and impact. Yet if outcomes are defined narrowly, OBF can unintentionally exclude the very children it seeks to serve.
This raises a central question: can OBF make visible, support, and meaningfully include the children most often left behind – or does its results-driven structure risk reinforcing exclusion?
A new technical brief, Designing for Disability Inclusion: Insights from the Early Childhood Care and Education Outcomes Fund in Rwanda, published by the Education Outcomes Fund (EOF), explores this question. Drawing on lessons from the design of Rwanda’s ECCE Outcomes Fund – developed with the Government of Rwanda – it examines how OBF can improve quality, equity, and inclusion by aligning government, donors, and community partners around a shared vision of early learning for all children.
What Do We Mean by Inclusion and Equity in Early Childhood?
Inclusion in ECCE is more than enrolment. It means every child is welcomed, safe, and engaged in the daily rhythms of learning and play. For a three-year-old, it might mean being invited into a circle game; for a five-year-old, having a caregiver who adapts an activity so they can rejoin.
Equity is about fairness – recognising that some children need more support to thrive. This might mean a caregiver giving extra time to a child who communicates differently or adapting group activities so everyone can participate. At a system level, it means directing resources to centres serving marginalised communities, so poverty, stigma, or disability do not block participation.
The goal is not only access, but visibility, participation, and belonging, learning through play. When children are counted in data, welcomed into centres, and supported by attuned caregivers, they can learn through play – the foundation of development and connection in early childhood.
What is OBF?
OBF is a funding approach that pays for results, not activities. Unlike fixed-price or cost-reimbursable contracts, under OBF, payments are released only when pre-agreed outcomes are achieved and independently verified.
In ECCE, such outcomes might include:
- measurable improvements in child development,
- enrolment and participation of children with disabilities, or
- improvements in the quality of ECCE centres.
Because payments are tied to outcomes, OBF requires careful design: what counts as a result, how it will be measured, and how providers are incentivised to achieve it. But OBF is not just a financial approach. It is a partnership model. Outcomes funds, an OBF tool that pools funding from multiple sources and contracts multiple service providers, are often designed under government leadership and co-funded by ministries alongside donors and philanthropic partners. Communities, civil society organisations, and local providers are central to delivery. As EOF describes it, OBF aligns multiple actors – governments, funders, and implementers – around a common outcomes framework and a shared public purpose. This partnership structure makes OBF both powerful and complex. Its potential depends entirely on the choices made about which outcomes are valued and how inclusion is embedded.
The risks
If outcomes are defined too narrowly – for example, focusing only on literacy or average test scores – children with disabilities may not “count” toward payments. A child who develops differently or makes progress in unmeasured areas can become invisible in the results framework. In low-resource settings, this can lead providers to prioritise quick, measurable gains over meaningful inclusion. Rigid verification systems can compound the problem, reinforcing the perception that enrolling children with disabilities threatens providers’ ability to meet targets – and therefore, to be paid.
The opportunities
The same mechanisms that create risk can also drive inclusion. Because outcomes determine what is valued and rewarded, inclusion can be built directly into the design. Outcomes can recognise enrolment and progress of children with disabilities, using adapted tools that reflect diverse developmental pathways. Incentives can reward providers who reach children most often left behind, as Rwanda’s inclusion premium does. When inclusion is measured and resourced, it becomes visible – and OBF transforms from a financial mechanism into a lever for equity and belonging.
In short: OBF magnifies whatever is written into its design. If exclusion is ignored, exclusion can grow. If inclusion is embedded, inclusion is resourced and made visible. This is why the design of outcomes, tools, and incentives is not a technical detail but the ethical heart of OBF in ECCE. Precisely because OBF makes outcomes visible, it creates a rare opportunity to put inclusion at the centre of financing systems.
Lessons from Rwanda
The ECCE Outcomes Fund in Rwanda shows how inclusion can be embedded in OBF design. Although implementation has not yet begun, three design choices stand out:
- The Inclusion Premium
The programme introduced an “inclusion premium,” doubling payments for children with disabilities under the child development outcome metric. This makes inclusion viable rather than a liability. Assessing outcomes at the group level instead of individual scores also reduces pressure to exclude children whose progress may not follow linear patterns.
- Bringing Children Into Centres
Many children with disabilities remain at home and unseen by systems. To address this, the ECCE Outcomes Fund integrates the Washington Group Child Functioning Module (WG-CFM) to help identify children with functional difficulties and make them visible in data, ensuring they are not left out of enrolment or results.
- Supporting Attuned Caregivers
The Fund emphasises strengthening ECCE centres so staff can meet diverse needs. For children aged three to six, an attuned caregiver who notices distress, adapts play, and helps a child rejoin peers is often the key to inclusion. When selecting implementing partners, their proposals are reviewed to make sure they meet quality standards for creating inclusive environments. Additionally, inclusion-related content was shared with implementing partners as part of the implementation guidance provided. The guidance emphasised relational, strengths-based strategies for identifying and supporting children within ECCE centre life.
These measures do not resolve every issue, but they show how OBF can create frameworks that promote visibility, participation, and belonging for all children.
Navigating Real-World Trade-Offs
Designing for inclusion in OBF is complex. For the ECCE Outcomes Fund in Rwanda, several constraints had to be managed:
- Data limitations. The WG-CFM requires adaptation, training, and cultural sensitivity. Without careful preparation, children with disabilities may still remain invisible in data, and the fund could struggle to identify who needs support.
- System gaps. ECCE centres cannot meet every need; broader health and social protection systems remain underdeveloped. Even when children are enrolled, access to therapies, referrals, and family support is limited, placing added pressure on centres and ECCE staff.
- Alignment with government priorities. The programme had to fit within national strategies and timelines, shaping what could be achieved. Design choices — such as how inclusion is measured or which tools are scaled — had to balance ambition with what was politically and institutionally feasible.
These realities require compromise. Inclusion cannot be made comprehensive in one step, but progress is possible: children can become visible in data, providers incentivised to include them, and caregivers supported to create safe, engaging environments. OBF is not a silver bullet, but it can be a practical mechanism for embedding equity into financing — even in resource-constrained settings.
Conclusion
OBF is neither inherently inclusive nor exclusive. It is a tool — and its impact depends on design. Without care, it can deepen inequality by rewarding only what is easiest to measure. With intention, it can make children with disabilities visible, valued, and supported in early learning. For the global education community, the message is clear: OBF must embed inclusion from the start — in how outcomes are defined, measured, and rewarded. When financing brings every child into safe, engaging, and supportive environments, it moves beyond accountability toward equity. Only then can we say that OBF fulfills its purpose: ensuring that all children, especially those most often left behind, have the chance to learn, play, and belong.
Read the full technical brief here.
The Author
Ella Wright is a Disability and Inclusion Consultant with the Education Outcomes Fund and a PhD Candidate in Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of British Columbia. She served as one of two inclusion experts on the design of the ECCE Outcomes Fund in Rwanda. With over two decades of experience in international development, she is dedicated to advancing equity through participatory and contextually grounded approaches, collaborating with governments and communities to ensure education systems foster a sense of belonging for every child.