It's 2010 and aid donors are on the hunt for new ideas. Billions of dollars are being poured into aid but the results are often unclear and governments are facing increasing pressure to prove the value of aid to skeptical taxpayers.
A plan gains traction to shift the focus from inputs to outcomes. Instead of paying for a hospital to be built or healthcare professionals to be trained, the donor would only stump up the cash when, for example, child stunting or maternal mortality rates fell; instead of funding new schools and teaching equipment, they'd pay for an increase in literacy rates. In return, donors would step back and let the implementers figure out how to achieve those results — fostering innovation, localization, and building institutional capacity.
The concept, and related jargon, snowballed. Results-based financing, cash on delivery, payment by results — whatever you prefer to call it, by 2017 an estimated $25 billion of development money had been tied to results.