The Outcomes Finance Alliance (OFA), formerly known as the Impact Bonds Working Group (IBWG), held its fifth annual summit in Zurich, Switzerland, from March 18-19, 2024.
The Summit convened over 120 organizations to shape the strategic agenda, share knowledge, and engage in action-oriented discussions on outcomes-based financing (OBF). From multilateral organizations and partner governments to investors and implementers, the Summit brought together a diverse array of practitioners and thought leaders to showcase the notable advancements in outcomes finance, while also deliberating on strategies to enhance its impact by overcoming common barriers.
The core three themes of the Summit included the integration and mainstreaming of OBF within institutional practices, amplifying the narrative on outcomes in policy discourse, and exploring next-generation approaches in OBF.
Breakout sessions facilitated knowledge sharing and discussion around policy areas including education, employment, climate change and nature-based solutions, gender, health, migration, and fragility. In addition, cross-cutting breakout sessions focused on emerging approaches such as outcome funds, impact-linked finance, and social outcomes marketplaces – as well as the behaviors and strategies needed for effective narratives and partnerships within OBF.
Several notable takeaways emerged from the two-day Summit:
- Since this community was formed in 2018, there has been exciting growth in outcomes finance and tangible progress in building the ecosystem. For example, the event featured the first Cohort of the Outcomes Accelerator’s pipeline acceleration program and announced the winners of the second cohort – bringing the total Accelerator portfolio to twelve projects targeting multiple SDGs and countries.
- Over 70 percent of the Summit participants were newcomers to the OFA since its last convening in 2022. Additionally, one third of participants reported forging new potential partnerships on projects as a direct outcome of the event. Both are promising indications for continued market expansion and collaboration.
- The Summit underscored the diverse range of outcomes-based approaches within the OBF ecosystem, including but not limited to, impact bonds. This also reinforces the rebrand of the community to the ‘Outcomes Finance Alliance.’
- Donors and governments highlighted that the narrative on outcomes finance can be made more accessible for policymakers by focusing on how outcomes-based approaches can enhance development effectiveness. OBF is a tool that that can be used to support effective spending and the quality of impact in development cooperation programs.
- To facilitate further growth of the market, the OFA Summit participants emphasized the critical importance for organizations to integrate and institutionalize OBF as a core practice. A high-level panel featuring SECO, SDC, FCDO, and Instiglio set the stage for this discussion on day 1, which was deepened amongst outcome funders and donors in a closed-door roundtable on day 2.
- A notable takeaway from the outcome funder roundtable was the recognition of the need for global guidance on outcomes finance to further institutionalize and scale outcomes-based approaches. To address this, the OFA highlighted an upcoming collaborative effort with the OECD-DAC Results Community to explore the development of internationally accepted guidance on OBF.
Read the full summary here.
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