The Challenge
India’s skilling ecosystem trains a vast number of learners each year, yet remains structurally fragmented in both scale and service delivery. Most training providers operate at a micro or regional level, with wide variation in curriculum, course duration, and delivery models. Only a few offer integrated support across the entire skilling-to-employment continuum. Consequently, alignment between market needs, training programs, and support systems weakens, reducing the sector’s ability to deliver strong livelihood outcomes. Previous outcomes-based financing programs for skilling have already demonstrated that this approach can deliver strong results. These lessons highlight the need to scale outcomes-based financing and embed it within government systems to drive accountability, standardization, and impact at scale.
Blended Finance in Action
TBFC is supporting the scale-up of outcomes-based financing (OBF) in India’s skilling ecosystem. As part of this effort, TBFC is designing and fundraising for a large-scale outcomes fund. In an outcomes-based fund, payments are released by the outcomes funder only after the agreed results are achieved, while an intermediary funder provides upfront working capital to enable program implementation.
The design work includes identifying sectors and job roles aligned with market demand and government priorities, developing the outcomes framework, and fundraising to unlock government contributions. Beyond the core fund design, TBFC is also working with philanthropic donors on adjacent interventions to build ecosystem readiness for OBF at scale, including establishing a capacity-building pool to help training providers become outcomes-ready, and facilitating the design of a technology-enabled monitoring and evaluation process.
