For nearly two decades, the Global Partnership for Education has been delivering funds and supporting solutions to build strong and resilient education systems so that more children in lower-income countries, especially girls, get the education they need to thrive and contribute to building a more prosperous and sustainable world.

In 2018, GPE launched the Multiplier, an innovative finance instrument that incentivizes other funders to invest more and better in education.

The Multiplier “unlocks and unblocks” new cofinancing for education programs at a ratio of 1:3, meaning that every dollar of GPE resources should bring in at least $3 in additional external financing (under GPE 2025 model, the ratio can be 1:1 for private sector and foundations).

As of July 2021, at the time of the review, 35 countries had received allocations from the Multiplier (22 had been approved) for a total of $350 million, which had unlocked more than $1.6 billion in cofinancing, surpassing the 1:3 ratio.

Evaluating the Multiplier on three dimensions

In 2020, a rapid internal review of the Multiplier was conducted to assess its success to date. The assessment by a team of independent evaluators examined three areas:

• The Multiplier’s financial additionality: did it effectively crowd in additional resources?
• Its policy additionality: did the funds mobilized go towards impactful programs?
• Its processes: how easy is it to access it?

In terms of financial additionality, the desk review found that the Multiplier helped unlock or unblock financing in the 32 countries reviewed.

On average, the Multiplier helped mobilize 5 times more co-financing compared to the Multiplier grant amount (1:5 compared to a minimum of 1:3). These funds came mostly from co-financiers increasing their funding or from co-financiers that redistributed existing funds to the education subsector of interest to GPE.

In the Maldives for example, the World Bank had provided US$10 million for the Enhancing Employment through Human Capital and Entrepreneurship Development project. After consultation with the Ministry of Education regarding the possibility of a Multiplier grant, the World Bank increased its financing to the project by another $10 million.

Interviews with stakeholders in partner countries revealed that the Multiplier may not induce financial additionality in every context. Providing evidence of additionality is not a clear-cut process. An in-depth external evaluation is being launched therefore to better understand and assess the Multiplier’s leverage.

The review found consistent and considerable policy additionality of Multiplier grants. For example, the vast majority of these grants support marginalized students, particularly students with disabilities, which is one of GPE’s areas of focus.

For example, in Lao PDR, the Multiplier grant supported donor coordination by bringing together funding from several partners—Australia, JICA, the World Bank—in support of teacher quality in the country.

The evaluation highlights areas for improvement

The assessment also identified some areas for improvement. Transaction costs have decreased since 2018, but further efficiencies are warranted.

Partners have noted the heavy transactions costs in applying for the fund and a lengthy process, varying from country to country based on whether there is an existing grant and on the size of the grant.

The review also noted the need for simplifying the requirements for, and providing practical and concrete examples of, demonstrating financial additionality of the funding, i.e., the evidence that financing would not have been mobilized or mobilized as quickly without the Multiplier. This would help reduce the burden for countries and grant agents.

Another recommendation for improvement is to ensure that the country dialogue is inclusive to bring the voices of all partners in the local education groups into the policy discussions, particularly in cases where the grant agent is also the Multiplier co-financier.

These recommendations are already being address by the Secretariat (see the GPE Secretariat response to the review).

An independent evaluation of the Multiplier will soon be launched, which will look in depth at the same dimensions studied last year. The results will be available in 2023, and we will share them with all GPE partners again, in the spirit of learning and adapting to best serve the needs of the children in the countries GPE supports.