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Research on water splitting reaction is on priority to explore an alternative source of energy with little to no carbon emissions. Among the two half reactions of electrochemical water splitting, oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is highly desirable yet challenging to prepare a cost effective and viable electrocatalyst to boost the OER activity. Herein, we have prepared a novel electrocatalyst, CoO x -CoP/N-CNTs, by the phosphidization of cobalt oxides (CoO x) encapsulated N- doped carbon nanotubes (CoO x /N-CNTs). The CoO x /N-CNTs composite is derived via pyrolysis of cobalt based zeolitic imidazole framework (ZIF-12) at 950 °C under argon atmosphere. The CoO x /N-CNTs is phosphidized at various temperatures ranging from 320 °C to 400 °C. The optimized temperature to attain the best catalytic activity is 380 °C. The phosphatized material, CoO x -CoP/N-CNTs, shows superior performance towards OER with an overpotential of 250 mV @ 20 mAcm−2 vs 532 mV @ 20 mAcm−2 of un-phosphidized material, CoO x /N-CNTs, which shows significant effect of phosphidization. The maximum current density of 160 mAcm−2 in 1 M KOH solution is achieved. • A novel electrocatalyst, CoO x -CoP/N-CNTs, is fabricated. • The phosphatized material, CoO x -CoP/N-CNTs, shows superior performance towards OER. • During OER activity, an overpotential of 250 mV at 20 mAcm−2 and current density of 160 mAcm−2 is observed. • The electrochemical activity remarkably greater than the un-phosphatized material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]