Rwanda has teamed up with the Education Outcomes Fund (EOF) to introduce the nation’s first outcomes-based financing programme focused on early childhood care and education (ECCE). It is the first of three major outcomes-driven education projects that target the improvement of early learning.
The second programme is set to launch in South Africa in December, and another in Sierra Leone in early 2026. Altogether, the three initiatives will represent more than $57 million dedicated to ECCE improvement.
The €13 million project in Rwanda intends to support over 25,000 children aged 3 to 5 across 390 community-based early childhood development (ECD) centres throughout the country.
This four-year initiative is designed to strengthen child development, improve school readiness, reduce the quality gap between community-based and formal ECD centres, and gather strong evidence about which interventions produce real results. Children with disabilities have been made a priority in the programme’s planning.
Contracts have been signed with three organisations: Help a Child (working alongside African Evangelistic Enterprise and Bridges Outcomes Partnerships), Plan International (with Caritas and Bridges Outcomes Partnerships), and Save the Children. These partners will handle the programme delivery.
“We have encouraged the education delivery partners to form consortiums so they can leverage the expertise of other organisations,” explained Milena Castellnou, EOF’s chief programmes officer, who said that Bridges Outcomes Partnerships is supplying upfront capital and ongoing support for Help a Child and Plan International.
Save the Children will use its own funds to pre-finance its part of the programme and take on the financial risk.
Payments to the grantees will only be made when specific, independently verified outcomes are achieved. The Rwandan government will contribute 10% of the programme’s funding, while the LEGO Foundation will provide the majority of the financing.
EOF acts as the fund manager and coordinator on behalf of all funders. “We have been working with the LEGO Foundation since 2022 and with the governments of all three African countries on how best to implement outcomes-based financing in early childhood care and education, and that work has informed the programme. It’s been a great learning journey and we will continue to share the knowledge we collect,” Castellnou added.
