Introduction, Background and Structure of this Report

Purpose and Objectives of this Study

This study focuses on the work of SDC’s Analysis and Research Section (A&R), which is the focal point for research-related policy, strategy, and coordination, and its flagship initiative TRANSFORM. Between 2020 and 2024, SDC invested between CHF 40 and 50 million (US$57 million) annually in research initiatives. Their aim is to generate and disseminate new knowledge and innovative, science-based solutions. Of that total, the A&R section manages 20-25 percent.   

Launched in 2020, TRANSFORM built on previous research investments by SDC, which evaluations had found to be pioneering, but whose actual impact could be further strengthened. TRANSFORM represents a step forward by requiring that, in addition to academic or university involvement from both Switzerland and the partner countries, projects would include local implementing partners – NGOs, or public or private sector actors. 

Upon reaching the mid-term of the TRANSFORM program, A&R recognized that implementation does not automatically include scaling and commissioned this study to assess both progress and what could be done to facilitate scaling moving forward. A&R was aware that the integration of transition to scale into TRANSFORM at its inception and during its first few years of implementation was limited. While the study assesses the mainstreaming of scaling into TRANSFORM to date, its primary focus is forward-looking. In this context, the principal objective of this study is to provide recommendations to SDC A&R on how to strengthen the link between research, innovation, and impact at scale or scaling, i.e. how scaling could be further integrated into TRANSFORM in the future. In that context, it looks to provide evidence and recommendations on:

1. The TRANSFORM programs’ main achievements, including good practices, strengths, opportunities and successes as well as main challenges related to scaling
2. What it takes to bring research results to optimal scale (defined below), necessary preconditions, enabling factors, good practices and challenges and traps
3. Best practices and support mechanisms (incl. steering structure and selection criteria) found in other research and innovation funders in the development sector
4. The design and preparation of new scaling instruments in SDC’s research for development portfolio
5. How to support research initiatives on their transition to optimal scale

The findings and recommendations for this paper draw primarily on two sources. First, international research on “good practice” in scaling, as found in the published literature and particularly the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) Guidance on Scaling Development Outcomes and Scaling Community of Practice’s (SCoP) Scaling Principles. Secondly, the experience of other innovation funders making investments in international development and humanitarian assistance.

The SCoP Mainstreaming Initiative

This paper is one of a series developed for the Mainstreaming Strategic Initiative (MSI) of the SCoP. The SCoP provides a platform for knowledge exchange among experts and practitioners on approaches to scaling up development interventions, for developing partnerships, and for championing the idea that scaling up development impact is critical for achieving global development aspirations, such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and climate change aspirations.

Launched in spring 2023, the MSI is a two-year “action-research” effort to study mainstreaming scaling in international development funder organizations. The purposes of this initiative are to: (i) assess progress in mainstreaming to date; (ii) develop lessons learned; and (iii) disseminate those lessons to encourage and inform further mainstreaming by interested organizations. In its first year, the MSI produced a set of background papers, thirteen case studies, and an interim Synthesis Paper and Policy Brief. Based on the positive assessment of the MSI, the SCoP has decided to continue the project for a second year, through mid-2025. This study of SDC’s research and innovation investments under TRANSFORM is one of the Phase II reports. It uses a methodology and approach like the one used for the cases from Phase I, adapted to the needs of the SDC, and draws on the findings and lessons of the Phase I case studies.

Structure of this Report

The rest of this report is divided into three sections. Section II provides definitions of scaling terms and concepts as well as a discussion of what is considered good scaling practice in international development. This serves as a benchmark for analyzing mainstreaming to date as well as a source for recommendations. Section III describes the TRANSFORM initiative in terms of its design and the programs and projects it has funded. It identifies TRANSFORM’s strengths and successes as well as gaps and main challenges.

Based on the analysis identified in Section III, Section IV makes recommendations as to how A&R can strengthen and scale TRANSFORM, as well as position itself to support scaling more generally in any future investments in research and innovation. It illustrates those recommendations with examples drawn from the experience of comparable institutions, broadly defined as other funding organizations that invest in research and innovation for international development and humanitarian purposes, have integrated scaling into their operations. (see the list in the previous subsection)

 

Definitions, Concepts and Good Practices

The terms “scale” and “scaling” mean diverse things to different people and organizations. This subsection briefly defines those terms and elaborates on other key concepts, definitions and good practices, with greater detail provided in several Annexes, particularly providing examples from other innovation funders. These are drawn from work on good scaling practices and principles developed by the SCoP, the International Development Innovation Alliance’s (IDIA) guidance on scaling, and the recently issued Development Assistance Committee Guidance on Scaling Development Outcomes (hereafter referred to as DAC Scaling Guidance). It makes use throughout this paper of the IDIA’s six-stage scaling architecture for innovation and scaling, as presented below.

This paper defines scaling as transformational as opposed to transactional scaling. Transactional scaling measures scale in terms of the number of people reached within a pilot effort or project. Rather than in proportion to the size of the problem, need, demand or challenge, it assesses progress from the starting point. Scale is used more as a description than a goal or objective; almost any reach or coverage of people/places is seen as scale no matter how small. Transactional scaling builds on a projectized view of development that focuses on disbursements, intermediate outputs, and outcomes rather than impact, hitting project goals of reach, coverage, and impact within the confines of a short-term (usually three to five year) project. Because of the limited time frame, there is usually little, or no attention paid to long-term sustainability of funding and implementation after the project ends, i.e., ensuring future scalability, let alone putting in place the systemic conditions and handing off to domestic actors who can continue to drive scaling after project completion. 

By contrast, transformational scaling targets long-term sustainable impact at large scale. In transformational scaling impact is measured in terms of outcomes, not outputs, and relative to the scale of the problem itself. Transformational scaling usually requires a long-term time frame – 10-15 years or more – with initial projects focusing on creating the pre-conditions for later projects or domestic actors to continue to progress along scaling pathways. It often involves a sequence of projects or a programmatic approach where systems change and greater scale proceed in a synergistic, iterative, and dialectical fashion. It sees one of three viable scaling pathways: public sector, private/commercial sector, or a hybrid combination of the two.

Financial and implementation sustainability are critical components of transformational scaling. Financial sustainability is defined as having a domestic Payer in place. While external funders may cover the costs of scaling (IDIA stage 5) and institutionalization (IDIA stage 6), for sustainability it is almost always domestic Payer or funding mechanism (or actors) that covers the ongoing costs of the intervention’s implementation. Viable funding mechanism can be fiscal resources for public sector pathways, the consumer/end user pays in private sector pathways, or a hybrid public-private model. Doers are one or more domestic actors who have the necessary capacity (can implement at scale), capabilities (have the skills, staff and technical knowledge to implement the innovation with fidelity and impact), mandate, and incentives to be able to implement the innovation with quality, fidelity and impact at large scale. In most cases, non-profits dependent on donors, philanthropy, or charitable contributions are not viable funding models unless they have earned income, i.e., are social enterprises.  

Optimal Scale. Central to the concept of optimal scale is the idea that scale is not the only or even the primary objective of scaling. (For purposes of clarity, in the rest of this paper the narrow concept of scale, in terms of either numbers of people or places covered, will be called “reach” or the “breadth” of impact. Impact on the problem being targeted, e.g., food insecurity on the part of small farmers, will be called the “technical impact” or “depth” of impact.) It recognizes that other objectives may be equally or more important than reach or technical impact, such as equity and especially gender equity, environmental sustainability, social inclusion, addressing climate change, or alignment with local priorities and culture. It also notes that scaling can have unintended consequences and those need to be attended to. Thus, in optimal scale there are tradeoffs between different objectives – given limited resources not everything can be achieved with one innovation, program or project. In application of optimal scale, it is important to make explicit exactly what the priorities and tradeoffs are.  

Because of the emphasis on sustainability and social inclusion in optimal scale, in most cases this requires a transformational approach that specifically addresses those issues. The exceptions are where the transactional investment fully addresses the problem and does so sustainably. That is possible but uncommon because sustainability and social inclusion require having an external environment that is well suited to support the innovation, i.e., a supportive policy enabling environment and domestic funders and implementers are available who have the resources and capacity to continue to implement and grow the reach or coverage to the size of the problem. In most low and low-middle income countries in the Global South, that is not the case and so successful transformational scaling will require some investment in systems changes such as policy reform, capacity building, and possibly reducing the unit cost of the innovation while retaining impact to affect scaling. In middle income countries with stronger budgets, governance, and institutions, e.g., much of Latin America, systems strengthening is less often required.

In the rest of this paper, scale is defined as transformational and optimal scale – targeting the challenge in proportion to the size of the need, looking to continue scaling over a long time horizon, integrating systems change to address constraints to future scaling, and make clear and explicit tradeoffs between reach, technical impact, and other objectives.

In addition to transformational and optimal scale, it is important to integrate internationally recognized good scaling and mainstreaming principles and practices (GSMP). The paper applies GSMP derived from the SCoP, IDIA, DAC, publications in grey literature and peer-reviewed journals, and the experience of other innovation funders. A summary of GSMP is presented in Box 1.

 

Box 1.  Good Scaling and Mainstreaming Practices and Principles Scaling needs to be at the core of an organization’s objectives and championed by organizational leadership. Incorporate scaling into organizational strategy, integrated into institutional policies and operational procedures, and adequately funded. Build scaling in from the beginning – integrating scaling into projects into design, research, prototyping, piloting and proof of concept, as opposed to waiting until proof of technical impact has been reached or a project is near completion. Have a clear vision of what sustainable impact at scale looks like (from the beginning) – expected impact, scale or scaling potential and who Doers and Payers will be. Apply scalability criteria and assessments throughout the project or grant making cycle. This includes integrating scalability criteria in calls for proposals; proposal evaluation, improvement, and approval; project monitoring and evaluation; and, in general, decisions as to whether, what, where, and how a project or intervention should be scaled. Integrate (and fund or otherwise support) relevant systems change that address constraints and obstacles to sustainable impact at scale, such as to the policy enabling environment, public sector and civil society institutional capacity, gaps or weaknesses in market systems and value chains, and public, cultural or social norms, beliefs and attitudes. Start with and regularly update a scaling vision and strategy that: (i) identifies what sustainable impact at large scale would look like; (ii) makes explicit tradeoffs between reach, technical impact, gender equality and social inclusion (GESI), and other objectives (optimal scale); (iii) outlines a preferred scaling pathway; and (iv) specifies who will play the intermediary role – funding and implementing going to scale and institutionalization (IDIA Stages 5 and 6). Continually develop and use evidence on scalability and progress on scaling throughout the research, innovation and scaling pathway and using that evidence on decisions about what, where, how and whether to scale. Integrate local preferences and the needs of potential Doers, Payers, and other stakeholders to support advocacy, marketing and communications. Mainstream localization and locally led development (LLD) into all aspects of scaling. Localization is foundational to scaling and should be integrated into all stages. LLD describes an ongoing development process where local actors have agency, and preferably take the lead, in framing, designing, delivering (including control over funding), accounting or/and learning, with or without the support of international development co-operation. That process should be inclusive of various stakeholders, especially targeted populations and in-country government partners, and enable these and other local actors to express competing voices and find common ground. It should ensure that solutions to problems are not only needed but wanted and demanded. GESI LLD is foundational to scaling. Integrate partners into scaling strategies at all levels to supplement the resources of core funders and lead partners. As stated in the DAC Scaling guidance: “Bring in partners that can take on distinct roles and responsibilities for the long-term: as funders, implementers, intermediaries, or advisors. [….] Assess and strengthen capabilities of in-country partners to maintain operations of the innovation or intervention at scale over time.” p. 8 Fill or support the intermediary function. The intermediary function is the role to lead, drive and facilitate scaling through IDIA scaling stages 5 and 6, scaling and institutionalization. The functions of the Intermediary are, among others: (i) funding and fundraising; (ii) investment packaging and placement; (iii) capacity building and institutionalization; (iv) organizing and managing partnerships for scaling; (v) advocacy, marketing, knowledge dissemination and awareness raising; (vi) convening; (vii) change management; and (viii) systems strengthening. If neither the innovation funder nor the research and innovation team are able or willing to play this role, then another organization or partnership needs to be identified to play that role.

 

Scaling and the TRANSFORM program

This section describes SDC’s TRANSFORM program and the extent to which scaling, especially transition to scale, has been integrated into TRANSFORM. 

The TRANSFORM program

Overall Goals, Approach and Specific Investments

The TRANSFORM program aims to bring research and practice closer together and at making use of research results on a larger scale. Within that overall objective, TRANSFORM has three major goals.  These are:

• To generate transformative knowledge and technology that contribute to sustainable development in the global South 
• To foster utilization of research-based knowledge, technologies, and innovation in development policies and interventions, through engaging implementing partners from the onset of research projects 
• To enhance scientific skills and know-how in conducting transformative and transdisciplinary research on complex development challenges 

TRANSFORM contains two sets of workstreams: a set of partnership programs jointly funded with Swiss research institutions and several flagship projects. Each partnership program is led by either a Swiss university or research institution. Each partnership program in turn funds and provides in-kind support for multiple, individual projects through their own calls for proposals. Similarly, the flagship projects were selected through an open call for proposals (CfP) managed by SDC in 2020. The programs and projects are summarized in Box 2 below.

It is beyond the scope of this paper to carry out an in-depth review of the scalability of the four TRANSFORM flagship projects or the three partnership programs. This case study looks at the TRANSFORM instruments in general (e.g., call criteria) – not the individual projects. The analysis of these instruments serves as the basis for the findings and recommendations provided in Section IV.

 

Box 2.  TRANSFORM flagship projects and joint partnership programmes Flagship Projects AgriPath AgriPath aims to bring sustainable agriculture to scale by identifying and promoting promising pathways for digitally supported agricultural advisory services that effectively and efficiently empower female and male smallholders to make informed decisions and sustainably increase their agricultural productivity, income, and climate resilience through the uptake of sustainable farming practices. It aims at filling the gap of scientifically validated evidence in that field and investigates different delivery models for digital advisory services (DAS), trying to understand which has most impact on the scaling-up and adoption of sustainable agriculture practices. ComBaCaL The Community Based Chronic Care Lesotho project (ComBaCaL) combines research excellency from Switzerland and Lesotho to validate an innovative e-Health prevention and care model for non-communicable chronic disease (NCD) in health facilities and communities in rural Lesotho and beyond. The project assesses the value of an innovative and effective community-based health care model and how this improves NCD prevention and care, as well as related social and economic development in low resource settings by reducing avoidable morbidity and mortality of people at risk of NCDs.  Hands4health Hands4health tests new water efficient hand washing technologies and promotes a holistic approach to hand hygiene, water quality and sanitation. The project works in primary health care facilities and schools not connected to a functional water supply system. It assesses how innovative WASH interventions, combined with systematic behavior change measures, can increase water use efficiency, reduce costs and ensure that hand hygiene behavior norms are followed by all user groups. Moreover, the project aims at improving the health of staff, patients, visitors and students in health care facilities and schools by avoiding the transmission of communicable diseases through improper and non-consistent hand hygiene. IFE-2-LNOB The Innovative Financing for Education to Leave No One Behind project (IFE-2-LNOB) assesses specific innovative financing mechanisms such as impact bonds and social lending schemes with regards to their effectiveness and cost efficiency towards quality education of marginalized children and young adults. The project assesses if impact bonds and the social lending scheme for education are more efficient and effective, and, based on solid scientific research, tries to influence the related global policy dialogue. Therewith, IFE-2-LNOB aims at more and better use of financing towards inclusive and equitable education as impact bonds and the social lending scheme shall be attractive for donors, governments and impact investors. Joint Partnership Programmes SOR4D The Solution Oriented Research for Development programme (SOR4D) is a joint funding instrument by the SDC and the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). Building on experiences and lessons learnt from previous joint programmes, SOR4D aims to foster needs-driven, transdisciplinary research that generates actionable knowledge, innovative solutions, and transformative approaches to advance sustainable development and poverty reduction in the least developed, low-, and lower-middle-income countries. The programme supports equitable partnerships between researchers in Switzerland and the Global South, along with implementing partners, to conduct research that responds directly to local challenges. By focusing on evidence-based solutions, SOR4D enables their delivery, testing, and implementation at the local level, ensuring real-world impact and long-term sustainability. ETH4D The ETH for Development program (ETH4D) is a university-wide effort by ETH Zurich to deepen its commitment for the SDGs. It seeks to harness technological innovation alongside a deep understanding of human behavior and environmental contexts to develop impactful solutions that improve the lives of people living in poverty. It supports research and learning that combines diverse knowledge and skills from engineering to the social sciences, from the natural sciences to the humanities, from scientists to citizens, and from research to practice, and connects researchers across disciplines with civil society, industry, and policymakers to co-create knowledge and drive societal change. A key focus of ETH4D is to educate the next generation of global changemakers, equipping engineers and scientists with the skills and mindset to design, implement, and scale transformative innovations with a global perspective.  Tech4Dev Tech4Dev is an international cooperation acceleration program developed by École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in collaboration with the SDC. Its main goal is to foster research and innovation that contributes to the SDGs in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). It catalyzes cross-sector collaboration and matches technological innovations from EPFL Laboratories with development needs identified by NGOs and local stakeholders willing to co-create solutions that address global challenges such as climate change, healthcare, and energy access. The program emphasizes human-centered design and provides funding and support to help projects move from an idea to real-world impact.

Integration of Scaling into TRANSFORM call for Flagship Projects 

In terms of scaling, TRANSFORM expected that the programs and projects would produce: “research-based innovation with tangible results in the next three to five years” that would “facilitate the validation of research findings and up scaling.” [emphasis added] However, at the time of its design in 2019-20, beyond this mention, TRANSFORM did not frame its goals or approach as one of innovation leading to scaling and thus any analysis needs to recognize and acknowledge this up front. Nonetheless, the CfP for the individual flagship projects had several requirements that were relevant to scaling. First, projects had to include both an in-country research institution and one or more implementing partners that had a pre-existing presence on the ground. Implementing partners could be from the public or private sector or civil society – NGOs or social enterprises. This was clearly an improvement on past research investments that had often not led to either adoption or implementation on the ground; the inclusion of local implementing partners was designed to address this gap. It also was explicitly intended to ensure that the problem being addressed was relevant to the local context, and that there was local need for any solutions developed. This was to ensure, among other things, that neither the research agenda nor solutions were being developed and imposed from the Global North, and Switzerland in particular. Thus, localization or LLD – a foundational GSMP – has been a core component of TRANSFORM from its inception. 

Second, project proposals were required to conduct impact evaluations and thus provide evidence that could be used as proof-of-concept. Generating evidence through impact evaluations and being evidence-based is also a foundational GSMP. 

Finally, the proposals were expected to produce research papers and other outputs that would be relevant to local audiences, particularly policy makers, and serve as the basis for awareness building, dissemination and policy dialogue. To the extent that there was a scaling strategy and pathway, it seems that there was a presumption that many research solutions would scale through a public sector pathway. The hand-off or exit strategy would consist of a combination of publications and other knowledge products, dissemination efforts, and most of all, policy dialogue.

While these aspects of projects and programs did lay some foundation for scaling, overall scaling did not receive much consideration in either the proposals that were submitted nor how they were evaluated and approved as it was not an explicit priority in 2020 when these programs and projects were started. Most projects had small, local NGOs as implementing partners, though there were also a few larger NGOs and INGOs like the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Given the small size of implementing partners, it seems likely that few of these partners of the projects funded under the three joint research programs – especially the implementing partner – had the capacity, skills, resources, or motivation to advance solutions developed beyond policy dialogue or the equivalent in private scaling pathways, i.e., to take the innovations at least through the Transition to Scale stage. Proposals were supposed to have a sustainability and exit strategy, but in most cases did not. Where sustainability was mentioned, it seems to have been more often used in its environmental sense than in terms of enduring benefits.  

Integration of Scaling into TRANSFORM partnership programs

The three partnership programs do incorporate a few criteria and objectives in the overall design and presumably the review of individual project proposals that are relevant to scaling. These include “develop and rapidly transition technologies into adopted solutions” and LLD via the inclusion of local partners to ensure that the problems being addressed, and the solutions being developed, are responsive to local needs.

The Tech4Dev factsheet states: “Different models of scale have been created for the projects supported by the program (local social entrepreneurship, NGOs transfer, I/O government transfer), [….] A network of scale fund is under construction.” There is also mentioned that Tech4Dev follows a “funnel” approach, in that as research projects move through various phases of research and development, only those meeting certain criteria will be funded to advance to the next stage. However, the Tech4Dev funnel stops at prototyping and does not extend to scaling, i.e., only covers the first three phases of the IDIA scaling pathway (see p. 10 above).

ETH4D

As with Tech4Dev, the majority of implementing partners for ETH4D projects are NGOs; the ICRC plays a prominent role in several projects. Three projects have an identifiable public sector partner, and three or four seem to be either a social or commercial enterprise. Most of the partners are engaged in humanitarian work. 

Scaling appears to be integrated into the various ETH4D projects in two ways. The primary mechanism is that implementing partner NGOs will adopt and integrate proven innovations into their own work, i.e., through an NGO scaling pathway. In this case, the ultimate scale (reach) of these projects is likely to be limited to the reach of the NGO itself and the sustainability of UN or other donor funding; with ICRC this could be quite large, with many of the smaller NGOs, less so. The other mechanism is through policy dialogue.  

SOR4D

As noted above, SOR4D was designed building on the experiences of the R4D programme, specifically “…  being at the service of the needs from practice and strengthen the accessibility and potential use of results in practice.” Selected projects are funded for a three-year research phase, followed by an additional year dedicated to pilot testing and scaling initiatives to accelerate transformation. This additional year of financing are called Transformation Acceleration Grants (TAGs) and are available to “projects with demonstrated high potential for scaling-up, application, and transformation.” Given this timeline, the earliest projects are currently in the research phase, and pilot testing and scaling activities are anticipated to commence in 2025. 

In the meantime, SDC has funded a second round for two of the three partnership programs, ETH4D and Tech4Dev, and the next phase is planned for SOR4D. Phase II of ETH4D/Tech4Dev adds a more explicit scaling-related objective:

Outcome 2: (i) development actors which support the scaling of sustainable solutions (Swiss and LMICs actors) are engaged; (ii) the transition of projects to the right scale actor are supported; (iii) development organizations are equipped with relevant solutions and (iv) start-ups are funded to scale innovations in the global South.

Challenges and Alternative Approaches to Scaling

In listing the findings and conclusions of the analysis above, it is important to restate that scaling was not integrated into TRANSFORM’s original design in any significant way, and that was equally true of the Call for Proposals and how such proposals were evaluated and approved by SDC. Rather, TRANSFORM’s principal goal was to move beyond funding research to achieve at least some implementation through the addition of implementation partners. In this, SDC has been successful.

Scaling research and solutions are challenging for most funders

Before commenting on how SDC might support scaling in its TRANSFORM program, it is helpful to briefly review the experience of other innovation funders as in most cases SDC faces similar challenges. Many innovation funders, GCC, GIF, USAID DIV, USAID FTFIL, and the CGIAR among them, have funded academics and/or other researchers, particularly experts from hard sciences, to develop solutions relevant to the SDGs and international development learned. Many concluded after several years that this was not leading to innovations being adopted, funded, and implemented at scale, let alone sustainable impact at scale. Drawing on the experience of these funders, the lessons learned are described in Box 3 below.

 

Box 3. Challenges in scaling research-generated solutions in international development Incentives for researchers usually don’t include impact at scale. For most academics and other researchers their primary incentives are publications in peer-reviewed journals, which are the primary basis for promotion, remuneration and professional status, not scaling. Left to their own devices, they do not prioritize implementation or adoption, let alone scaling.  Research design, piloting, and proof of concept don’t include scalability criteria. Researchers focus on developing technical solutions to problems, but unless explicitly encouraged and incentivized to do so, they do not take include adoption or scalability criteria in their design.  Belief that proof of concept – effectiveness – is not only necessary but sufficient to engender adoption and scaling. Because of this, most researchers do not generate evidence relevant to policy makers and end users, such as costs of implementation and institutionalization.   Research grants do not contain financing for scaling. While in many cases solutions can be developed at costs in the CHF/$100,000s, moving further on the scaling pathway, at anything beyond local scale, usually requires resources of one or more million. Technical experts tend to underestimate the socio-economic and systems challenges to scaling in the Global South. Thus, many innovations are a solution to a problem but not scalable.   Scaling requires building trust and relationships with local stakeholders, not just evidence. Trust and relationships are only developed after years of working together, longer than the duration of most research projects. While including local researchers in scaling partnerships, and even as research project leads, often substantially improves the relevance of the solution to local needs and context, they haven’t necessarily cultivated the necessary relationships or networks either.

Humanitarian issues and localization suggest alternative approaches to scaling

In addition to the issues raised in Box 3 about research, it is important to raise two additional issues about scaling that are found among funders and are relevant for many of the projects funded through TRANSFORM. These are: (i) challenges to scaling solutions, projects and programs that address humanitarian rather than development challenges, and (ii) the issue of localization or locally led development and contextualization.  

Humanitarian Issues

For solutions that address humanitarian issues, it is often the case that traditional public and private scaling pathways are not viable since their financial sustainability requires adequate public funding or business models. Outside of corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts, most private sector actors are not willing to support scaling of solutions that are not profitable.  CSR resources are usually small as compared to the size of the problem and therefore neither a viable nor sustainable source of funding; India may be an exception where firms are required to invest two percent of profits in CSR. Turning to public sector pathways, the greatest need for humanitarian solutions is in fragile, failed, or conflict solutions where governance, implementation capacity and fiscal resources are extremely limited or non-existent. In such cases scaling will have to occur through either large, humanitarian INGOs, networks of community level NGOs – both relying on donor funding or other forms of charity – or through long-term efforts to change social attitudes, such as social movements. This suggests that A&R may wish, at least in these cases, to eliminate sustainability from its criteria for scaling. 

Localization and scaling

Most of TRANSFORM’s implementation partners are NGOs, and in many cases small, local NGOs working at the local community level. This brings with it a great advantage in terms of their knowledge of the local context and their trust and relationships with local communities. Because of these characteristics, these actors not only tend to prioritize and integrate issues like gender equity, social inclusion, and addressing marginalization and vulnerability, but are effective at addressing them, perhaps because they focus on empowering local communities. Finally, working through these types of actors ensures that innovation and project designs are neither being imposed by institutions based in the Global North, nor reflective of post-colonial legacies or power imbalances, nor introducing solutions that are inappropriate for the local environment. All of these issues are aligned with core values and principles of SDC and what it funds.

With all of these advantages comes a downside in terms of scaling, which is that innovations designed for a specific local context may not be easily replicable in other contexts as they tend not to be either designed or tested for external validity, even within the same country. This is particularly true for large, diverse, often Federal countries like Brazil, India, or Nigeria, countries with many different tribes and ethnicities, or of widely varying climates and agro-ecological zones. Thus, it is uncertain whether the solutions developed at the community level are relevant or applicable to much larger scale, such as regional or national, or would be equally effective in diverse contexts. This challenge of what might be characterized as excessive contextualization was noted in both the GIZ mainstreaming study as well as a forthcoming study of scaling of innovations by the World Bank. Similarly, as noted earlier in the discussion of Optimal Scale, attention to GESI and other similar priorities, principles, and values can come with a trade-off between those priorities and scale and impact. It is not the place of this paper to comment or recommend where that trade-off should be made – that is up to SDC and its grantees – except to encourage that it be made consciously and explicitly. 

Finally, and closely related, is whether small, grassroots, community-based, local NGOs see scaling to other regions or nationally as part of their organizational mission and vision. Even if they do, they often lack the advocacy and marketing skills, relationships and networks, understanding of national political economy and enabling environment, status and legitimacy, and convening power, necessary for scaling at large scale.  

Alternative approaches and pathways for optimal scale

If projects are not scalable through traditional public or private pathways, then it is important to explore alternatives. One such alternative that has been developed in the last few years primarily for humanitarian interventions is a more grassroots, community-to-community form of horizontal scaling called “transfer and adapt” or an approach that is particularly useful in low resource and governance settings called “Innovation as System” (see Annex IV for a brief description). “Transfer and adapt” favors contextualization, customization and local ownership and empowerment rather than achieving large reach or scale; in most countries there are too few NGOs with the necessary capabilities to achieve large scale. This approach is not likely to achieve big numbers or geographic coverage (the breadth of scale) in large part because there are no economies of scale in this approach, and scaling is time, resource, and effort intensive. Nor is it financially sustainable in a traditional sense. Nonetheless, scaling through these approaches could have substantial impact on a smaller scale. In this regard, it would be helpful for A&R to clarify what it means by “optimal scale” and whether it includes these alternative scaling pathways.

The rest of this paper does not include these approaches; it applies the definitions, scaling practices, and principles and approaches set out in Section II. Based on the discussion above, those definitions, principles, criteria, and frameworks may be to some extent inconsistent or incompatible with the goals, objectives, and approach of SDC, A&R, and TRANSFORM.   

 

Strengths, Challenges, and Recommendations in Scaling

Given the general challenges of scaling research, and the fact that scaling was not built into TRANSFORM when it was first designed in 2019-2020, it comes as no surprise that there was limited integration of scaling into its projects and programs. However, the TRANSFORM design and implementation of its programs and projects do have several strengths, as well as challenges and gaps, relevant to scaling. This section assesses those strengths and challenges for a selected set of Good Scaling and Mainstreaming Practices. For each topic, the section offers recommendations for future action and illustrates those recommendations with examples from comparable innovation funders. (A list and brief description of the comparable innovation funders referred to in this paper is presented in Annex V.) Before looking at specific issues and recommendations for A&R and TRANSFORM, this section discusses the implications of A&R’s staff size, funding, and organizational capacity for scaling.

SDC and A&R have limited capacity and human and financial resources in comparison to many other innovation funders. Most of the comparison funders have budgets of more than $20 million, in the $20-40 million range. By contrast, the TRANSFORM budget is roughly $11 million annually. Similarly, A&R has a relatively small staff, not all of whom work full-time. The resources and capacity of A&R are critical in considering which of the recommendations made below it chooses to adopt. There are several solutions to this challenge. These include: 

• engage in co-funding and close partnerships with other funders, leveraging, for example, their capacity to develop scaling criteria, tools and guidance, and conduct due diligence on the ground; 
• focus on a limited number of sectors and locations; 
• contract out some functions, such as providing in-kind support to project teams; and
• have limited goals and objectives for scaling, especially sustainability.

It is the recommendation of this paper that A&R pursue a combination of all these approaches, with greater use of partnerships, narrower focus, contracting out, and less ambitious goals being the most important. The reader is advised to keep these issues in mind in reviewing the rest of this section.

Integration into Vision, Mission, and Strategy by the Organization’s Leadership

It is a good scaling practice for an organization to clearly articulate how scaling fits into its vision, goals, and operational strategy. The same is true for scaling a project, an innovation, or any type of intervention.

Assessment

A&R itself is committed to scaling and has the support and buy-in of its director and staff for scaling.  The next step is for A&R to be more explicit as to what its role is in scaling and develop clear objectives for scaling, i.e., what the expected aggregate scale and impact is of TRANSFORM. 

Recommendations

This paper recommends that A&R should consider developing its vision, strategy, and concrete objectives for scaling in TRANSFORM and other future research and innovation funding initiatives, at least in terms of what outcomes it will support through TTS and how it will measure success through that stage if not beyond. Examples of visions for DIV and FID are:

Development Innovation Ventures (DIV) is USAID’s open innovation program that tests and scales creative solutions to any global development challenge. DIV’s portfolio is made up of grant awards that finance evidence-based, cost-effective, sustainable, and scalable business models, products, behavioral interventions, applied research, and replications of proven innovations  [emphasis added]

The Fund for Innovation in Development aims to support promising ideas with high potential for impact against poverty and inequality, rigorously evaluate their effectiveness and accelerate their deployment on a larger scale. 

Clear, Widely Held Definition of Scale and Scaling Objectives

Assessment

A major strength of A&R’s current approach to investments is its use of optimal scale as its approach to scaling, particularly emphasizing the importance of GESI, and related issues like localization. All TRANSFORM investments explicitly recognize and integrate GESI, with many of the projects targeting those issues as their primary focus. The same is true for alignment with the SDGs. The understanding that scaling is important has been transmitted to existing programs and projects and is expected to be fully integrated in the next round of funding under TRANSFORM.

A&R has been less clear on what is meant by scaling in terms of the expected size or reach of impact or what is different about scaling as opposed to older concepts like research into practice, and what tradeoffs it expects to make between reach and impact versus what might be called equity objectives like GESI. Many of the original proposals and their targeting of knowledge products to be used in policy dialogue seem to reflect these older and less ambitious approaches. In this regard, it is worth quoting from IDRC’s Scaling Playbook:

Scaling impact requires mechanisms and varied knowledge sources that can move research back and forth along this spectrum. […]  Scaling […] moves beyond targeting knowledge users in a specific context and instead considers the full range of Knowledge translation and scaling initiators, enablers, competitors, and impacted who will support or hinder downstream results of the innovation. In essence, scaling moves researchers’ mindsets beyond outputs or solutions (often described as outcomes) and towards impact. Knowledge translation is about moving research generated knowledge into action. Scaling is how we amplify, distribute, sustain, and at times de-scale, the impact of these actions.

In terms of objectives and tradeoffs, A&R has yet to define success in terms of scaling for TRANSFORM, given that it has only the resources to at best support innovations through the stages of policy dialogue and Transition to Scale (TTS).

Returning to optimal scale, a key principle is that funders and grantees need to make explicit what their scaling vision is in terms of its multiple, diverse impacts. Impact starts with reach/breadth, technical impact (depth) and durability (sustainability over time, not environmental sustainability). Within that collection of multiple impacts, IDRC strongly implies that these tradeoffs and the scaling vision should be determined in a broad and inclusive process. 

Once again, this is a challenge that is being faced by almost all innovation funders; they only have the funding, human resources and mandate to support innovation and scaling through, at best, TTS, yet they often have been created based on the expectation that eventually some of their innovations would achieve impact at large scale. In the cases of the CGIAR and GCC, when such results are not forthcoming, even though those organizations have not supported scaling beyond TTS, they are often held responsible for the lack of results at scale. In both those and other cases, at a minimum they are doing more to track what happens to innovations they have funded after the TTS stage. In the case of the CGIAR, they have moved more aggressively to act as scaling intermediaries, not only creating partnerships with donors, national actors, and other stakeholders who can do the actual scaling, but working to manage and facilitate such partnerships on an ongoing basis.  

Recommendations and Examples

This paper recommends that A&R provide guidance to current (and future) TRANSFORM projects on what its scaling priorities and objectives are and how to make tradeoffs between these priorities. This would likely be much easier and feasible on a portfolio basis, i.e., for the aggregate of all the projects that the programs fund, rather than on a project-by-project basis. Based on this guidance, the program leads can then use this as guidance as to how they allocate funding for TTS investments. 

It is important to acknowledge that most innovation funders have avoided making such tradeoffs, as it is politically expedient to avoid prioritizing. Funders tacitly take an all-of-the-above approach rather than explicitly focusing on gender or marginalized or vulnerable groups even if that means they are going to reach fewer people. However, all-of-the above means that whatever tradeoffs are made are a random result of events rather than intentional. It is not for this paper to advise A&R as to what its priorities are, only to suggest that these decisions be made consciously and explicitly. 

Localization and Locally Led Development

Assessment

The greatest strength of TRANSFORM for scaling is its integration of localization or locally led development, but at the same time, as noted above, this can also be a challenge. The heavy emphasis on partnerships that include local researchers and NGOs, or at least Swiss or INGOs operating locally, has meant that the problems selected are relevant to local needs and communities, and to local context. However, when innovations are designed to maximize their relevance and efficacy in a local context, it is not clear whether they can be scaled to different contexts, or what types of adaptations might be required to do so. Adaptation can take considerable time, effort and resources – GIZ has found that this can take 18-24 months – which is why building scaling in from the beginning is critical. If adaptation must be repeated in many new contexts, the economies of scale and scope that are often critical to making scaling financially feasible may be compromised or lost entirely.  

Recommendations 

As with optimal scale generally, it is up to A&R to decide what tradeoffs they wish TRANSFORM projects to make between localization and scaling. A&R and its TRANSFORM projects would benefit from clarity on how to balance the virtues and strengths of localization, with its downsides for reach/breadth and replication. 

Account for System-Level Constraints to Scale

Assessment

An important good scaling practice is to identify systemic constraints and obstacles to scaling early in the project and either ensure that the intervention is scalable within existing systems and constraints, or initiate system change and strengthening actions to relieve those constraints. These systems constraints need to be at whatever the intermediate and ultimate scale has been set in the project’s scaling vision, and not just at local community levels. National systems constraints can often have little impact or be invisible at local scale. If they do pose challenges, prototyping and piloting projects often have sufficient management capacity, funds, and local influence to find workarounds to address those issues. As scaling proceeds to more people and places, systemic challenges become more salient. While alignment with local systems, as discussed in terms of localization, has been central to TRANSFORM projects, systems analysis and integration of systems constraints at scale was not requested by SDC of its research partners up until this point. 

Recommendations and Examples

This paper recommends TRANSFORM projects integrate systems analysis and constraints at scale into research and innovation processes if they wish to introduce scaling, similar to the political economy analysis discussed earlier. This has clear implications for the selection of implementing partners – they need to be sufficiently knowledgeable about systems at scale to inform all those items. As suggested above under inclusion and optimal scale, this means consulting with and preferably including scaling partners in TRANSFORM projects from the beginning. While such analysis can be delayed until after proof of concept or even later, the downside is that there may be proof that an innovation is effective or has efficacy, but it may not be feasible to implement at large scale for a variety of reasons, e.g., too expensive, too complicated, requires certain infrastructure, equipment or human resources like highly trained or educated staff to implement that don’t exist in large numbers nationally. In that case the innovation will have to be modified to fit within financial or other constraints, and, once modified, that proof of concept or the size of impact is no longer valid. However, building in political economy and systems analysis from the beginning takes extra resources and is being invested in innovations that have yet to prove their effectiveness. 

Another alternative is to address systemic constraints at scale so that there is no need to adapt or modify the innovation, or the need is minimized. However, for most innovation funders whose resources at best allow for TTS grants in a range of at most a few million US dollars or Euros, their funds are insufficient to support systems change (as opposed to project funders with resources in the tens of millions). If A&R wishes to consider integrating systems change, A&R could: (i) partner with innovation funders who have greater resources; (ii) help support their projects in finding partners to hand-off to (who can affect systems change); and (iii) integrate TRANSFORM innovations into SDC projects that do have the resources and mandate to affect systems change as far as feasible.

Integrate scaling criteria into the project management cycle combined with long-term, phased, and dedicated funding to support scaling

Assessment

TRANSFORM represents a major improvement over earlier research funding by requiring the inclusion of implementing partners in projects. Most implementing partners have solid credentials on social activism, work for basic human rights, and support a progressive development agenda. They are strong in identifying local needs, representing or at least engaging with local populations and communities, and in general utilizing participatory, inclusive, and equity-based approaches. This is aligned with SDC’s emphasis on saving lives and supporting access to high-quality basic services, guaranteeing environmentally friendly and climate-resilient development, promoting peace and human rights, and integrating gender equity and social inclusion.

At the same time, many existing implementing partners appear to be unable to act as scaling agents; again, it is important to reiterate that this was not requested or expected when TRANSFORM was first designed and calls for proposals issued. Offering an explicit funnel with multi-stage funding explicitly available upfront, as discussed in the recommendations below, may help them shift to a longer-term, scaling perspective.

Recommendations and Examples

This paper makes several recommendations for integrating scaling into the project management cycle and its funding instruments.

Calls for proposals and evaluation of proposals should include scaling criteria, be evaluated on those criteria, and use similar criteria in project quality assurance and improvement and approval  

This paper strongly recommends that A&R integrate scaling criteria in all phases of the project management (or grantmaking) cycle. This has been done by every comparable innovation funder surveyed. Consequently, there are many examples of scalability criteria from literature and other funders to draw upon. Some examples from these organizations and the literature are presented in Annex IX, along with recommendations.

Adopt a funnel, stage gate, or phased approach that provides funding and support for grantees to move through at least the first 4 stages of the IDIA scaling framework. Each phase should integrate explicit scaling criteria to receive funding for the next phase. 

The CGIAR, FTFIL, FID, GCC, GIF, IDRC, and USAID DIV have all explicitly adopted some form of a phased approach with scalability criteria at each stage. The CGIAR’s $200 million, five-year Scaling for Impact project (S4I) phased approach involves four phases: (1) identifying demand with potential scaling partners and other stakeholders in-country; (2) identifying innovation bundles and packages and scaling strategies and pathways; (3) identifying and addressing systems level scaling constraints and obstacles; and (4) operationalizing scaling into donor/country/private sector projects and partnerships i.e. IDIA stage 5. (See the bow tie figure in Annex VI that illustrates this approach).  

As noted above, USAID’s agriculture bureau found that the research it was funding through its innovation laboratories – FTFILs – were in most cases not producing scalable innovations, let alone going to scale. The bureau commissioned the Soybean Innovation Laboratory to develop its Innovation to Impact (i2i) tool, which uses a stage-gate, product life cycle approach drawing on the approach of commercial seed companies. (See Annex II for the details). This tool showed extremely promising results in the first few years of piloting and prototyping. 

Consider using a two-step process for proposals – concept notes and proposals – to better integrate scaling visions and strategies. Provide scaling training and coaching between the two stages.

Several funders that use open calls for proposals for research and scaling, such as IDRC and ELRHA/HIF, do so in two steps. Both organizations ask for something akin to a concept note first (ELRHA calls this strategy development) and then work with potential grantees to develop their notes into full blown proposals (ELRHA refers to this as strategy implementation). This is because both organizations have found that many potential grantees have strong technical proposals but neither understand scaling in general nor how to design and implement a scaling vision and strategy. In addition to IDRC and ELRHA, both DIV and FID give grants for proposal preparation (see Annex VIII for their sequence of grants and related criteria).  

A&R could implement something similar to these two-step processes. This could include a combination of training project partners and/or providing coaching from scaling consultants to work with the teams to translate the concept notes into a full proposal. A&R, partnering with other innovation funders interested in supporting innovation and scaling ecosystems, could work to develop and/or strengthen qualified scaling consultants. Alternatively, like DIV and FID, it could provide grants for proposal preparation.

Project teams should include partners who can drive scaling or substantive exit strategies.

A&R needs to retain the strengths of the TRANSFORM projects’ existing local implementing partners while working to integrate partners who can design and implement scaling strategies or at least plan and get to a hand-off or exit strategy (with greater depth than the current policy dialogue). Potential scaling partners should be assessed in the proposal stage on the capacity, experience and motivation of the scaling partner to advance the innovation further on the target scaling pathway. 

The ability of partners to scale is critical for many innovation funders. For ELRHA it is critical that the partner act as a leader, driver, and champion of moving forward on the scaling pathway. FID looks at the “skills of the team behind it” and one of its evaluation criteria are that project teams have a “Strong understanding of local context(s), current implementation challenges and barriers to success”. For FID, local context is not at the community level but means at the level of scale.

A more explicitly phased funding approach should be accompanied by funds to support each phase.

This paper recommends that A&R consider having multiple phases of grants, as many innovation funders do, i.e., research and development, piloting and proof of concept, transition to scale, and, if resources permit, support for scaling. Regardless of the number of phases, the purpose of and criteria for each phase scaling should be clearly specified.

DIV and FID use similar phased approaches to funding scaling. DIV has three stages of grants: Pilot, Test, and Transition to Scale as well as Evidence Generation. Having learned from DIV, FID decided to have a finer gradation, and has five stages: Prepare Grant; Stage 1 – Implementation of a pilot; Stage 2 – Impact Evaluation (or Test and Position for Scale); Stage 3 – Scaling Up; and a grant for transformation of public policies that can either be used for institutionalization of an innovation or capacity building of low- and middle-income governments to design, test, pilot, and/or scale evidence-based innovations. (The details of these stages and their criteria can be found in Annex VIII.)

GCC may be the best example for A&R to draw upon, given similar budgets and having begun its existence funding primarily research. At its inception in 2010, GCC only made “seed grants” for a diversity of health-related topics. Seed grants were to develop and test the efficacy of innovations. However, just three years later GCC “recognized a critical funding gap between the pilot stage and where innovators could access capital to scale” that was leading its grantees to fall into the so-called “valley of death,” not getting from proof of concept to scale. In response, it created a special facility called Transition to Scale grants to address this. Since then, based on subsequent learning from the experience and needs of its grantees in scaling, it has increased the maximum dollar value, grant duration, made grants renewable, and divided TTS grants into four phases. The details can be found in Annex VIII. 

Training, Guidance, and Oversight to Support Scaling (Internally and Externally)

Assessment

Almost all innovation funders and philanthropies that support scaling have found that neither researchers nor small or even medium-sized NGOs have much experience, competence, or understanding of scaling and what is involved. For those reasons, many engage in multiple stages of refining proposals and providing external coaching, guidance, and technical support to potential grantees as they move from a concept note through one or more stages of fully fleshed out proposals, revised proposals, etc. The three partnership program managers do provide some coaching or support to grantees, but it is unclear how much of this support is relevant to scaling and transition to scale in particular; it is beyond the scope of this paper to assess that or how much competency or understanding of scaling the program managers have. To date A&R has not provided in-kind support to any of the TRANSFORM projects or programs, such as building internal capacities relevant to scaling, or providing coaching. Nor has it hired consultants or consulting firms to provide that kind of support.

Recommendations and Examples

This paper recommends that A&R and its partnership programs partners engage external consultants to provide scaling support to individual program managers and potentially projects that have reached a certain stage of the funnel, and that ideally this be provided both in turning concept notes into full proposals as well as during implementation. There are several examples of diverse types of support from innovation funders, collected in Annex XI. 

The Intermediary Role, Hand-Offs and Leveraging Partnerships 

Assessment

Partnerships are used by innovation funders and scaling organizations to make up for gaps in their resources, capacities (reach), and capabilities (skills and technical knowledge) in scaling. For example, two innovation funders like A&R that are housed within or related to bilateral donors – FID and IDRC –have strong partnerships with AFD (France) and GAC (Canada) in terms of assessing which proposals are worth funding (due diligence), funding (IDRC often co-funds with GAC) and handing off to support scaling (FID with AFD). 

Partnerships are equally if not more important in scaling beyond transition to scale. Finding partners who can undertake both scaling and institutionalization at scale, or the Intermediary functions, and handing them off to such partners, is critical to successful scaling. Intermediary functions include help with funding and fundraising for the next stage of scaling; investment packaging and placement; and convening, advocacy and marketing; and institutionalization and change management. As can be seen, many of these functions overlap with or duplicate the types of external non-financial support many innovation funders supply (see Annex XI again), precisely because many innovation teams lack the capacity. In other words, for scaling to succeed, intermediary skills and capacity need to either be built into the innovation team if they are willing to play that role, i.e., a social enterprise, or find and employ scaling partners who can provide that support and/or play the intermediary role. 

Recommendations and Examples

This paper recommends that A&R require projects to integrate scaling partners into TRANSFORM projects, as discussed above, contract out to local actors who can play the intermediary role, or clearly identify and have a strategy from inception to hand-off to intermediaries. A&R and SDC could fill some of the intermediary roles. They could assist projects in making connections to funders or implementers who can take their innovation to the next stage of scaling. This should start with SDC; to the extent possible innovations should be integrated into other SDC projects so that they can go to the next level of scale. In terms of funding, SDC has relationships with MDBs, bilateral donors, and foundations that many small local NGOs usually do not. Similarly, the Swiss government through its embassies as well as other SDC projects in the same country may be able to help TRANSFORM projects connect with relevant public or private sector actors. Finally, A&R should be willing to introduce projects to other donors.

FID is a good example of an innovation funder that uses its own relationships and that of its bilateral host, AFD, to facilitate scaling. FID works to link its grantees with governments, particularly when the innovation has the potential to influence public policy or be scaled through government programs. This connection can help ensure that successful projects are integrated into national strategies or adopted by public institutions. It also provides grantees with networking opportunities that could lead to future funding, whether through investors, foundations, or development organizations, helping them to gain visibility and attract additional resources to scale their work. Many FID innovations are taken up and integrated into AFD projects.

GCC identified a lack of expressed demand for health innovations, as opposed to need by public sector agencies, as a major obstacle to scaling. To address this, it contracts with local organizations that have the knowledge, network and relationships, and status and legitimacy to facilitate introductions to government agencies that could serve as scaling partners, usually the Ministry of Health. It has also offered support to grantees in obtaining funding for scaling itself, particularly innovators who have the possibility of attracting impact investors or have minimum commercial viability. It has also invested in a variety of impact funds as part of its strategy to crowd in investment capital. In addition, GCC has supported or invested in a variety of other mechanisms to help grantees cross the “valley of death” between Transition to Scale and Scaling. GCC and especially IDRC have been able to partner with Canada’s Global Affairs Canada (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Trade and International Development) to have some of their innovations integrated into GAC projects.

This paper does not recommend that SDC invest in creating one or more “scaling” websites where innovators post profiles of their innovations, and potential users or adopters search for innovations relevant to their needs. While there are a few examples of such websites that have had some success, (there has been no systematic review of such efforts), successful cases are probably the minority of cases. One of the few successful cases has been Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT), but as described in Annex XII, TAAT goes well beyond creating a virtual clearinghouse for agri-food technologies.  

Generate Evidence about Scalability and Progress in Scaling 

Assessment

Evidence is critical for scaling in multiple dimensions. Innovations should not be scaled, and increasingly can’t be scaled, without evidence of impact and scalability. As noted by GIF: “We invest a lot in evidence generation, […] because Global South governments are demanding it.” Evidence needs to be used in making decisions about every stage of the scaling process — whether, what, how and where to scale. Monitoring needs to be used to track progress in scaling and iteratively adapt and modify the innovation and scaling strategy.  Finally, evidence is critical for advocacy and marketing to hand-off innovations to partners who can scale, to Doers and Payers to implement and fund at scale, and for raising funding for scaling. That evidence needs to be based on the information those actors use to make decisions about adopting, scaling and financing innovations. Evidence is foundational to TRANSFORM and projects do produce quality evidence of proof of concept. Nonetheless, evidence relevant to scaling doesn’t seem to go much beyond proof of concept, i.e., effectiveness and impact, to include other factors that policy makers often consider, such as initial costs of adoption and of ongoing implementation. 

Recommendations and Examples

All the innovation funders reviewed for this paper, despite their own limited resources and funding amounts, now require their projects or grantees to produce a much broader set of evidence relevant to scalability and scaling progress and to support advocacy, marketing and handoff. We strongly recommend that A&R develop, or commission the development of, a MEAL framework that includes key scaling criteria for its projects and programs. This should mirror the scaling criteria used in the proposal stage. One alternative is that A&R develop these, pilot them with its projects and programs to test their viability in practice and refine. Another alternative is that the programs and projects do it themselves, at least initially, and that A&R then facilitates a process of harmonization between its three programs and others to achieve a common framework, or at least frameworks that are at least broadly comparable and consistent with each other while not necessarily identical. 

Expecting project leaders to understand these concepts merely from the publication or framework is unlikely to generate the desired results. Various innovation funders covered in this survey, such as USAID’s FTFIL, found that reporting by grantees on various scaling indicators, such as readiness for scaling, did not bear up after spot checks by USAID staff. This seemed to be less to do with exaggerating progress but to a lack of understanding of what scaling readiness really means. The creation of a MEAL framework and guidance should be accompanied by training for TRANSFORM projects in application of the MEAL framework and indicators, perhaps integrated into training about scaling in general as proposed above. 

Confirmation of the parallel nature of scaling criteria and what evidence needs to be generated to support scaling can be found in the approach of Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA). IPA specializes in generating evidence for scaling (or not) with potential scaling partners and then engaging in policy dialogue and working with policymakers generally to support scaling. Many of the services it provides to its partners include evidence generation, and need to be done by some part of a scaling partnership. In identifying what evidence is necessary, IPA believes that three elements have to be in place: (i) an evidence-based program optimized for impact at scale; (ii)  a capable implementer to deliver and monitor the program with fidelity; and (iii) a favorable ecosystem to enable and sustain the program over time.

A second challenge for innovation funders is how to assess (and report to Boards of Directors or higher levels of government) what long-term impact at sustainable scale is being or going to be achieved, given that this is not likely to be realized for many years after their investments end. As part of setting goals and objectives for TRANSFORM’s impact at scale, it would need to develop a way to measure or project that. GIF’s solution, Practical Impact, was described above. Another example that may be relevant to SDC and TRANSFORM is that of GCC; like TRANSFORM, GCC has limited funding, no presence on the ground or ability to validate impact claims and lacks an internal M&E capacity. As a result, GCC developed a bespoke approach to modelling (i.e. predicting future) potential impact (lives improved through measurable improvements in health or wellbeing) resulting from the innovations that receive TTS grants.

Finally, it is important to reemphasize that for most innovation funders, their measures of success are not only impact and scale, they also very much include sustainability, especially financial. Again, referring to GCC:

GCC considers financial sustainability to be a key success factor for scaling impact. … In the case of for-profit entities, we assess standard financial metrics but do not expect Transition to Scale-supported companies to achieve breakeven during our funding period. For non-profits, … [financial sustainability] includes plans and opportunities for income diversification or their own income generation, increased sophistication of strategic and financial planning, and sound grant and financial management systems and controls.

GIF attempts to forecast impact using their “breadth x depth x probability of success” model applied to 10 years after project end. A detailed description of GIF’s approach is provided in Annex XIII.

Summary of Recommendations

This paper has made several recommendations for A&R to consider. To summarize, these are:

1. Establish a clear scaling vision, strategy and objectives for TRANSFORM and for A&R’s research approaches in general.
2. Clearly define what is meant by optimal scale and what A&R’s priorities are between multiple objectives, aligned with the scaling vision and objectives, especially localization versus scalability.
3. Consider expanding A&R’s vision of scaling pathways beyond public and private to include options more suited to humanitarian, non-traditional problems and alternative solutions, such as “transfer and adapt” or “innovations as systems.”
4. Use a two-step process for proposals – concept notes and proposals – to better integrate scaling visions and strategies. Provide training and coaching between the two stages.
5. Integrate scaling criteria into calls for proposals and proposal review and approval. Ensure that project teams include partners who can design and implement scaling visions and strategies and can drive scaling or exit and hand-off strategies. This includes having knowledge of the systems, enabling environment and stakeholders at target scale
6. Have projects integrate systems analysis and constraints into their research and design process.
7. Adopt a funnel or stage gate approach to scaling, providing funding at each phase of scaling with specific scalability criteria for each phase.
8. Develop scaling expertise on the A&R team and provide scaling coaching and technical support to project teams, especially in terms of multiple intermediary functions (or use external consultants).
9. Develop a MEAL framework to generate evidence of scalability, track progress through the various stages of innovation and scaling for individual innovations and projects; which can then be used by that project for policy dialogue, advocacy, marketing and communications. Once projects are collecting this kind of data, it can then be applied to an entire program’s portfolio, as is being done by the CGIAR, or even to the TRANSFORM portfolio as a whole. 
10. Given A&R’s set-up, aim to:

• engage in co-funding and close partnerships with other funders, leveraging, for example, their capacity to develop scaling criteria, tools and guidance and conduct due diligence on-the-ground; 
• focus on a limited number of sectors and locations; 
• contract out some functions, such as providing in-kind support to project teams; 
• have limited goals and objectives for scaling, especially reach and sustainability; 
• adopt only a selected number of recommendations, and phase them in; and
• make greater use of the capacity of SDC, its other projects and Swiss embassy staff.