How can outcomes-based financing for young people contribute to sustainable peace?
What if funding focused not only on what a programme delivers, but on the change it creates?
This is the idea behind Outcomes-Based Financing (OBF). Instead of funding organisations mainly to carry out a set of predetermined activities, OBF links financing to agreed outcomes, such as young people gaining sustainable livelihoods, accessing education or experiencing greater social and economic stability.
For youth peacebuilding, this creates an interesting opportunity. Young people’s lives do not fit neatly into separate boxes of peacebuilding, education and employment. These areas are deeply intertwined. Yet the programmes and funding that support them are often fragmented.
OBF offers a different way of thinking about how we fund change — bringing partners and resources together around shared outcomes rather than separate activities or sectors.
