The African Development Bank Group is expanding its Results-Based Financing (RBF) footprint across Southern Africa, targeting stronger technical capacity and a growing pipeline of performance-based operations in South Africa, Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, and Botswana.
A three-day regional workshop that concluded in Pretoria this week brought together Bank specialists, government officials, and sector experts focused on the RBF and advancing an instrument that disburses funds only when agreed development results are independently verified - shifting the focus from inputs and activities to measurable outcomes.
Since its adoption in 2017, RBF has been deployed across 22 operations in 12 countries, demonstrating its potential to strengthen accountability, improve public service delivery, and deliver value for money. A 2024 independent evaluation affirmed the instrument's strategic relevance, while identifying the need to scale up internal expertise and develop a stronger pipeline of RBF-ready operations. The Pretoria workshop was a direct response to those findings.
"Across the region, there is growing demand for financing approaches that strengthen accountability, reinforce country systems, and ensure that public resources translate into measurable and sustainable outcomes," said Moono Mupotola , African Development Bank Deputy Director General for Southern Africa. "Southern Africa is particularly well positioned to embrace results-based financing - and this workshop was our response to that demand."
The countries represented are actively exploring or preparing RBF operations across priority sectors - energy, social services, and water and sanitation. The workshop provided a platform to equip both Bank teams and government officials with the technical tools, operational guidance, and peer learning needed to design and implement high-quality results-based financing programmes.
The sessions covered the full RBF lifecycle: policy fundamentals, results framework design, fiduciary requirements, environmental and social safeguards, disbursement arrangements, and lessons from operations already under implementation. The workshop was complemented by dedicated clinics on the final day, bringing together Bank sector specialists, and country programme officers to identify and profile concrete pipeline operations.
The Pretoria session was the fourth and final in a continent-wide series of regional workshops hosted by the Bank in 2025-2026, following sessions in Egypt, Nigeria and Kenya. The series was organised by the Bank's Strategy and Operational Policy Department in collaboration with the Fiduciary and Inspection, Safeguards and Compliance, Development Impact and Results, and Disbursement departments.
Daouda Konipo, Principal Strategy and Policy Officer at the African Development Bank, said the workshop delivered on all three fronts.
"Participants leave with a clearer grasp of how and when to apply the RBF instrument, a preliminary pipeline ready for further development, and stronger ties across the region --all of which feed directly into our effort to scale up RBF across Africa," he said.
