SA Launches R496 Million Outcomes-Based Fund to Transform Early Childhood Education
Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube
A new R496 million outcomes-based fund aims to improve early learning and give thousands of young children a stronger start
image: Internet
by Kelebogile Matlou
South Africa launched the world’s largest outcomes-based fund for early learning, the R496 million Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Outcomes Fund, which intends to help 115,000 young children.
The fund was presented in Midrand by Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube in front of over 100 government officials, funders, and early childhood development experts. The program aims to promote early learning, reform funding paradigms, and improve long-term child development results using innovative and responsible techniques.
As part of a new approach to outcomes-based finance, the Department of Basic Education (DBE) collaborated with the global Education Outcomes Fund (EOF) to create the Fund. This initiative establishes South Africa as a global leader in creative development investment.
Over the next three years, the ECCE Outcomes Fund will expand and improve early learning programming in 2,000 centres across KwaZulu-Natal, the Eastern Cape, and Limpopo. According to government authorities, the plan is in line with the national 2030 Early Childhood Development Strategy and the Bana Pele Blueprint, which were both enacted earlier this year.
Minister Gwarube emphasized the long-term benefits of early childhood development, characterizing it as the decisive equaliser of opportunity in South Africa. She stressed that failing to invest in the early years has long-term effects.
“If we miss this window, we pay for it many times over through remediation, interventions, and ultimately through lost potential,” she said.
A central feature of the Fund is its outcomes-based structure, in which the government pays only for verified improvements in children’s development. Local NGOs functioning as implementing partners will have the opportunity to innovate as long as they achieve demonstrable results.
Miléna Castellnou, Chief Programmes Officer at EOF, praised South Africa for its leadership, stating that outcomes-based financing is a simple idea, paying for improvements in children’s lives, not for activities or inputs. She went on to say that South Africa’s work represents a significant shift in how early learning is funded.
