This webinar series introduces innovative financing mechanisms that contribute to development solutions, linking needs, objectives and actual results. This series will focus on results-based financing (RBF), in particular, which has emerged as an important tool for financing basic services because it changes the focus from inputs – funding given in advance for expected results – to verified outputs. As a center of expertise for RBF, the Global Partnership on Output-Based Aid (GPOBA) brings together RBF practitioners and development partners to share results, experiences and lessons on RBF.

Series 1: With the Government of Bangladesh driving its National Sanitation Campaign from 2003-2012, Bangladesh has made significant progress in increasing access to basic sanitation, reducing open defecation from 34 percent in 1990 to just one percent of the national population in 2015. Despite these achievements, Bangladesh remains off-track in terms of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which aim to achieve universal access to improved sanitation by 2030. The GPOBA project supports this agenda, working with two well-established microfinance institutions, Palli Karma-Sahayak Foundation and the Association for Social Advancement, along with 20 smaller retail micro finance institutions, to provide household sanitation loans for hygienic latrines. Hygienic sanitation facilities are considered the next generation of toilets, fully confining waste from both the user and the surrounding environment. Under the project, a GPOBA $3 million grant, paid as an OBA subsidy, helps to improve affordability of hygienic latrine installation at the household level and scale up the adoption of sanitation microfinance in Bangladesh as a tool for achieving the SDGs. Other parts of the World Bank operation provide support for consumer awareness on the need for hygienic sanitation and other behavior change activities such as handwashing, as well as building the capacity of local sanitation construction firms. The project is expected to benefit 850,000 people in rural Bangladesh. The webinar will discuss the project in detail, examining how OBA is being used to maximize finance for development to address sanitation challenges in Bangladesh.