Introduction

The Global Community of Practice on Scaling Development Outcomes has now existed for six years. It has nine working groups (WGs), the majority of which are in sectors like Health, Education and Nutrition. One WG is devoted to a single aspect of the scaling process – Monitoring and Evaluation.1 The Scaling Up Community of Practice (CoP) recently completed its 2020 (virtual) Annual Workshop. The workshop was comprised of a one- to two-hour meeting of each WG and three plenary sessions. The plenary session topics were: Scaling During the COVID Crisis, Adaptive Management, and The Role of Political Consensus. The purpose of this paper is to identify the issues facing scaling in international development, which cut across multiple WGs, for which further discussion, exploration, guidance, and tools would be of interest to community members. While the primary audience for this paper is CoP members, it is our hope that this paper will also be of interest and use to other scaling practitioners in international development, as well as the whole constellation of organizations engaged in scaling: funders, implementers, innovators, national and local governments, and private sector actors. For each issue identified, this paper describes why addressing it could make a significant contribution to the field of scaling. It goes on to suggest how further exploration of each issue could be practically addressed. In most cases, we recommend organizing workshops or webinars on the issue; a paper that would take stock of the issue – including relevant existing tools, examples or case studies, tools, and guidance. This paper is based on reviews of the Annual Workshop session videos and summary notes included in the November 2020 CoP newsletter. These can be found on the CoP website: www.scalingcommunityofpractice.com. Where helpful, the information from the Annual Workshop has been supplemented by other sources to flesh out either the issue itself, or the ways it could be addressed.