Background
The Global Partnership for Results-Based Approaches
(GPRBA), part of the Urban, Disaster Risk Management, Resilience & Land
(IDUGD) Global Practice at the World Bank, provides innovative financing
solutions that link funding to predetermined and measurable results. In
2022, GPRBA approved a grant for the Ghana Education Outcomes Project (GEOP),
which is a component of the World Bank IDA-financed Ghana Accountability for
Learning Outcomes Project (GALOP)1. The funding for GEOP is provided
by the United Kingdom's Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO),
with the Government of Ghana contributing an additional $4.5 million. GEOP
focuses on training, reintegrating, and retaining out-of-school children
(OOSC), as well as improving learning outcomes in mainstream schools.
GEOP employs an outcomes fund structure, which is an
innovative, results-based mechanism utilizing a portfolio of impact bonds, where
payments are wholly or partly based on the achievement of pre-defined outcomes. The
project engages investors, outcomes funders, service providers, and the
Ministry of Education (MOE) as the project implementing agency, merging the
principles of Results-Based Financing (RBF) with the collaborative efforts of
public-private partnerships. As the implementing agency, MOE directly contracts
and collaborates with social investors and service providers (NGOs) to
implement the program. Investors provide the upfront working capital in cases
where service providers are unable to do so.
Through its Accelerated Learning Programme (ALP)
component, the project targets approximately 80,000 out-of-school children
(OOSC) in rural areas with the highest absentee and dropout rates, in
districts historically deprived of strong educational infrastructure, and in
the Greater Accra and Kumasi Metropolitan districts. Additionally, through
its Mainstream School Improvement Programme (MSIP) component, students already
enrolled in 600 GALOP-beneficiary schools will benefit from strengthened
interventions supported by service providers financed under GEOP. Technical assistance
is provided by the Education Outcomes Fund to build government capacity to
contract and manage outcomes. Outcome payments by the World Bank and the
Government of Ghana are made based on the achievement of four broad agreed-upon
outcomes aimed at improving student placement, retention, and learning gains
across the two components. The project is expected to conclude in December
2026.
Accelerated Learning Programme (ALP)
The ALP is a nine-month educational
program aimed at integrating OOSC into formal education systems. It
specifically targets children aged 8 to 16 who have been out of school for a
minimum of one year. The program's success is measured by the following
metrics:
· Learning
Gains: Evaluating the improvement in educational performance during the
program.
·
School Placement: Assessing the transition of
children into mainstream schools.
·
Retention Rates: Monitoring the retention of
students in school for one and two years post-placement.
Mainstream School Improvement Programme (MSIP)
The MSIP is dedicated to enhancing
literacy and numeracy skills among children in grades P2 and P4 within
mainstream schools. GEOP's specific focus is on improving these learning
outcomes in 610 primary schools across 27 districts. The program's effectiveness
is gauged through the following indicators:
· Enrollment
and Testing: Tracking the number of children enrolled and tested, categorized
by gender.
·
Learning Gains: Comparing the mean difference
in learning outcomes between GEOP treatment schools and control schools.