Why Programs Haven't Scaled ā and What Will
You've been funding education in Africa for decades. You've backed rigorous programs, produced real evidence, and improved enrollment substantially. And yet ā after tens of billions of dollars in cumulative investment, public and private, domestic and donor-funded ā 85% of Sub-Saharan Africa's ten-year-olds still can't read a simple story. Learning poverty hasn't meaningfully budged.
I don't think the programs were bad. I think they were structurally unable to scale. Four barriers ā fragmented national policies, incompatible technology platforms, the absence of continent-wide outcome data, and an economic model that makes quality courseware unaffordable ā have prevented even the best EdTech from reaching beyond the pilot stage (see Essay 1. African EdTech's Four Barriers). Lower one or two barriers and the others hold. You have to lower all four at once.
The Breakthrough Project is designed to do that ā by building the shared infrastructure that education programs have always lacked. A continent-scale platform, a competitive ecosystem of free courseware, a professional workforce, a finance-grade evidence system, and a governance architecture anchored by the African Union. $488.2M over seven years. Self-funding by the early 2030s. No baseline donor support required after that.
This isn't another program. It's the infrastructure that makes your programs scalable. If that distinction matters to you, I'd welcome the chance to talk.
You know this landscape better than I do. So let me be direct about what I think has gone wrong ā and what hasn't.
What hasn't gone wrong: the evidence base. Large-scale trials in Kenya, India, and elsewhere have demonstrated that well-designed, curriculum-aligned digital courseware, used as a supplement to teacher-led learning, produces measurable learning gains. The programs you've funded have generated that evidence. It's real.
What has gone wrong: none of it has scaled. Africa spends approximately $4B per year on EdTech courseware ā fragmented across countries, platforms, procurement cycles, and pilot programs. Over three decades, tens of billions have been invested. The result: no durable continental infrastructure standing. The development sector has a saying for it: "Pilots never fail. Pilots never scale."
The structural diagnosis is in Essay 1. Four barriers are mutually reinforcing. Fragmented national policies mean every country is a separate market with separate rules. Incompatible technology platforms mean courseware built for one country can't run in another. The absence of continent-wide outcome data means there's no way to demonstrate impact at the scale that would justify large-scale finance. And the economic model ā where courseware is purchased per-seat, per-license, per-country ā makes quality courseware unaffordable for the majority of African school systems.
Lower one barrier and the other three hold. Lower two and the remaining two hold. The reason your best programs haven't scaled isn't that the programs are deficient. It's that the infrastructure they'd need to scale across doesn't exist.
The Breakthrough Project builds the missing infrastructure ā all four barriers, simultaneously.
Policy fragmentation is addressed through AUDA-NEPAD's African EdTech 2030: Vision & Plan, the African Union's first continent-wide blueprint for standards-based, vendor-neutral EdTech. The V&P provides the continental policy framework. RESPECT is its first reference implementation.
Technology incompatibility is addressed through the RESPECT Platform ā a Free and Open Source platform designed from the ground up for Africa's device reality: mobile-first, offline-first, engineered for low-end smartphones. One shared platform across countries. Apps built for RESPECT run everywhere RESPECT runs.
Missing outcome data is addressed through the GEOS evidence pipeline ā finance-grade, curriculum-aligned, independently auditable learning-outcome data flowing from every RESPECT Compatibleā¢ app. For the first time, continuous evidence of what learners actually know and can do, generated as a byproduct of normal use (see Essay 7. Making Education Outcomes Finance-Grade).
Unaffordable courseware is addressed through the RESPECT Ecosystem Fund and Sponsor Credits (SpoDits). App developers are paid based on verified usage ā by the Ecosystem Fund, not by Ministries. Every RESPECT Compatible app is free to every learner, every teacher, and every Ministry. No license fees. No procurement negotiations (see Essay 8. RESPECT's Economic Model and Essay 9. Sponsor Credits (SpoDits)).
This is the structural shift. Your programs produced the evidence that interactive digital courseware works. The Breakthrough Project builds the infrastructure that lets it work at continental scale ā the rails on which your trains can finally run.
If the infrastructure exists, what does that mean for EdTech programs going forward?
Your courseware investments scale. Today, a program that produces excellent courseware for Kenya can't easily deploy it in Senegal ā different platform, different procurement, different curriculum-mapping process, different language. On RESPECT, the same app runs everywhere. Curriculum mapping is handled by RESPECT Certified Mappersā¢ (Years 1ā4) and eventually by ECM (Easy Curriculum Mapping, Year 4+). Localization is handled by the Ecosystem. Your investment in one country's courseware becomes infrastructure for the continent.
Your evidence aggregates. Today, each program generates its own outcome data, using its own methodology, in its own format. The GEOS evidence pipeline standardizes that ā finance-grade, auditable, comparable across countries. The evidence your programs generate feeds a continent-wide picture of what's working and what isn't.
Your exit problem disappears. The hardest question in any program evaluation: what happens when funding ends? On RESPECT, the courseware stays free. The Platform is Free and Open Source. The Ecosystem Fund pays developers based on usage indefinitely. Your program's outputs don't evaporate when the grant cycle ends ā they become permanent features of the infrastructure.
Results-Based Finance becomes possible. The GEOS pipeline generates the standardized, auditable evidence that enables Results-Based Finance for Education (RBF4Ed). Ministries that deploy RESPECT Compatible courseware generate the data that unlocks new discretionary funding from RBF4Ed facilities. Your programs feed the evidence pipeline; the evidence pipeline feeds the finance (see Essay 7).
None of this replaces what you do. It amplifies it. The infrastructure makes your existing programs more scalable, more measurable, more durable, and more financeable.
The total investment is $488.2M over seven years (2026ā2032), across six interdependent components (see Essay 27. The Ask and Essay 29. Why So Expensive? for full details).
That's 12% of what Africa spends on EdTech courseware in a single year. Less than $1 per school-age child on the continent. And it's designed to be spent only once.
The investment is released in three milestone-gated tranches: Tranche 1 ($129.6M, 2026ā2027), Tranche 2 ($168.6M, 2028ā2029), Tranche 3 ($188.0M, 2030ā2032). Each gate is verified by independent auditors across four domains. If milestones aren't met, your exposure is bounded.
By the early 2030s, the system is designed to be self-funding. The Platform covers its costs through trademark and certification revenue. The Ecosystem covers its costs through Sponsor Credits. Professional Bodies cover their costs through training and certification fees. Each Planet-Project has a defined duration and terminal date. No baseline donor support required after maturity.
You've spent far more than $488.2M on education programs that couldn't scale because the infrastructure didn't exist. This builds the infrastructure.
The Breakthrough System starts in Africa ā the hardest market: the most languages, the most curriculum standards, the most constrained infrastructure, the deepest poverty. A DPI-Ed that works at continental scale in Africa works anywhere.
The UNESCO-UNICEF-ITU Charter for Public Digital Learning Platforms calls for precisely what the Breakthrough Project builds. No system currently exists that fulfills this vision. M-Pesa demonstrated that systems designed for African realities lead global adoption. DHIS2 demonstrated that DPI built for the Global South becomes the global standard. Africa's DPI-Ed is designed to follow the same trajectory ā first for Africa, then for LMIC-dense regions worldwide, and eventually for low-resource communities in the Global North.
For an EdTech funder, that's a global platform built on African proof of concept ā the infrastructure that makes every future education investment more productive, everywhere.
I'm asking for a conversation, not a commitment.
You've built the evidence base. You know that high-quality interactive digital courseware works. The question is why it hasn't scaled ā and whether the answer is infrastructure. I think it is, and I think the Breakthrough Project builds the right infrastructure in the right way.
The full case ā thirty essays, project plans, governance documents, and financial models ā is public and available for your teams. I'd welcome the chance to walk you through it.
Jim Plamondon CEO, Spix Foundation Email: jimp@spixfoundation.org
You've proven that the programs work. This builds the infrastructure that lets them scale. The investment is finite. The infrastructure is designed to outlast it. And the children you've been trying to reach for thirty years? They're in their forties now. It's their children who are waiting ā maybe their grandchildren.