Will it last? Will it scale up? A financing simulation
Many programmes for children show good results while EU funding lasts, and stop when it ends. Others continue and expand to new areas. In this simulation you lead one programme through six years of decisions and see how each decision affects whether it lasts and whether it scales up.
"Among financing practices, sustainability depends on whether the service delivery model can transition from ESF+ project funding to national institutional financing."
Your programme
You are the National Coordinator. A three-year programme supporting school attendance of children from low-income and Roma families has run in 20 municipalities in two regions. It is co-financed through an EU funding instrument and the national budget, and managed by a project implementation unit. The unit's reports show that attendance has improved in participating schools. The EU funding ends in 18 months. Ministers would like the programme to continue and to reach other regions.
Four conditions are tracked through the simulation. Each is not yet, partly in place, or in place.
Four decisions over six years. The programme and the country are illustrative; the consequences name documented practices.
Ministers are interested in the programme. The Ministry of Finance has asked what it would cost to continue, and what it would achieve. You have 18 months and a small team.
What do you do first?
Extend the programme to 20 more municipalities while the EU funding lasts, to build political momentum.
Link spending to results: report, for every area, the money spent, the children supported and the change in their attendance, and calculate the cost per child.
Prepare an application for a new externally funded project, to keep the teams in place.
The programme involves schools, social services and municipalities. The project implementation unit will close with the EU funding. The ministries of education and social affairs each see the programme as the other's responsibility.
Where do you place ownership of the programme?
Keep it with the project implementation unit, and extend the unit's mandate.
Make one ministry the lead, with a formal agreement across the ministries involved, and bring the Ministry of Finance into the steering group.
Transfer the programme to the participating municipalities, which know the families best.
The EU funding ends this year. The Ministry of Finance asks how the programme will be financed from now on.
How do you finance the programme after the EU funding ends?
National co-financing that rises each year, with the programme anchored in law.
Build the programme into an existing national system, such as the school system or a benefit scheme, and finance it through that system's budget.
Ask the participating municipalities to finance it from their own budgets.
Other regions ask to join. Some have strong local services and experienced staff; others have small teams and little experience of managing funds.
How do you extend the programme to new regions?
Extend the same model to all regions at once, to reach national coverage quickly.
Extend in phases: select areas that meet clear conditions, issue national guidelines, and provide technical support to each new area.
Invite each region to co-design its own version of the programme, within common objectives.
Where your path has taken the programme
Your four decisions
"Sustainability requires deliberate design for institutional transition. Practices designed from the outset to embed within permanent institutional structures demonstrate stronger sustainability prospects."
Whatever the path, the documented practices point the same way: what transfers is the logic of ownership, financing and tracking, adapted to your own institutions, not another country's model.
Three things the evidence shows
Continuation is decided before the funding ends.
The practices most likely to last were designed from the outset to move into permanent structures: a law, a national budget line or an existing national system.
Ownership and evidence are preconditions for the budget.
A lead ministry with a formal agreement across ministries, and results linked to spending, are what a Ministry of Finance needs to commit national funds.
Scale up at the pace of support.
Italy's 31 areas needed national guidelines, expert support and continuous monitoring; programmes expand where local capacity exists or is built.
Apply this to your context
If you work at national level
- Which of your programmes for children depend on EU or external funding that ends within two years?
- Which ministry owns each one, and has the Ministry of Finance agreed what will replace that funding?
- Can you show results per child and per euro?
If you work at regional or municipal level
- If national or EU funding for a programme you deliver ended next year, what would continue?
- What would you need to take on a programme from another region: guidance, technical support or funding?
- Who in your administration would own it?
Take this to your team: will it last, will it scale up?
Many programmes for children show good results while EU funding lasts, and stop when it ends. The programmes that continue and scale up secure four conditions: evidence that links spending to results, a ministry that owns them, a budget line that takes over from EU funds, and support sized to the new areas they reach.
Three things the evidence shows
- Continuation is decided before the funding ends. The practices most likely to last were designed from the outset to move into permanent structures.
- Ownership and evidence are preconditions for the budget. A lead ministry with a formal agreement across ministries, and results linked to spending, are what a Ministry of Finance needs.
- Scale up at the pace of support. Programmes expand where local capacity exists or is built.
Questions to use with your team
- Which of our programmes for children depend on EU or external funding, and when does that funding end?
- Can we show, for each programme, the money spent, the children supported and what changed for them?
- Which ministry owns each programme, and is there a formal agreement with the other ministries involved?
- Has the Ministry of Finance agreed what will replace the EU funding, and from which year?
- Before extending a programme to new areas, what guidelines and support will those areas need?
The point of this card is to bring the people who manage EU funds, the line ministries and the Ministry of Finance into the same conversation. Bring it to a working group or a steering committee and start with the first question.