Deadline: 31-Jul-25
The Education Outcomes Fund (EOF) invites concept notes for analytic research studies that will generate evidence, learnings, and actionable insights on the interventions implemented under the early childhood care and education (ECCE) outcomes funds in Rwanda and Sierra Leone.
These research findings will be central to the program’s learning agendas and contribute to broader, collaborative knowledge generation efforts running parallel to the interventions. EOF, a UNICEF-hosted fund, is dedicated to improving the education and employment outcomes of children and youth. In the pursuit of additional, more equitable, and more efficient funding for skills and education programs, they support governments to utilize outcomes-based financing instruments at scale, including outcomes funds.
Goals
- The research activities of the knowledge partners are expected to achieve the following goals:
- Equip government decision-makers with evidence, learnings, actionable recommendations. Noting that the Core ECCE Research Grant includes technical support to government decision-makers.
- Contribute to the national, regional and global evidence base on lessons learned and effective practices in ECCE.
- Support the programme’s implementing partners by providing timely research insights that complement their own monitoring, evaluation and learning systems as well as the performance management support provided by the impact investors to enhance the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of their intervention models.
- Build on existing in-country research capacity: if not Rwanda or Sierra Leone based, the selected knowledge partners will collaborate with Rwandan and Sierra Leonean researchers or research organisations in designing and implementing the research studies. This may include direct partnerships, mentorship programmes, or other capacity strengthening partnership initiatives.
Objectives
- The call seeks to identify and establish knowledge partnerships with consortia or individual research organisations to:
- Co-create the final learning agendas for the ECCE programmes in Rwanda and in Sierra Leone, elaborating upon their present scope, defining their methodology, and collaborating with the programmes’ independent evaluators to collect the data needed to meet research objectives. EOF will separately fund the necessary data collection through the programme’s independent evaluators already contracted in both programmes and will work in parallel with the research studies.
- Conduct analytic research to generate and share learnings and evidence on implementing partners’ ECCE interventions. This research is not meant to evaluate the interventions, but to generate complementary learnings related to stakeholders’ ECCE learning priorities. As this research will leverage the programmes’ independent evaluators for necessary additional data collection, no primary data collection is expected from the knowledge partners.
- Present relevant and actionable policy recommendations based on the research findings, providing government partners with technical guidance on scaling quality and cost-effective ECCE services.
Sectors and Areas of Specialization
- Education
- Early childhood development
Funding Information
- Indicative Budget 800000.00000
Geographic Focus
- Sierra Leone
- North Western
- Rwanda
- Northern
Eligibility Criteria
- EOF encourages applications by consortia of research organisations where organisations have complementary thematic and geographic expertise.
- Applicants may apply for one, multiple or all grant categories but should submit one concept note per research area applied for.
- This grant is open to both individual organisations and consortia of organisations.
- Eligible organisations and entities include UN agencies and civil society organisations (CSOs). CSOs are further sub-categorized as one of the following: international NGOs, national NGOs, community-based organisations, academic institutions such as universities, research organisations or think tanks, and International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)/Red Cross/Red Crescent National Societies.
For more information, visit UN Partner Portal.
