Executive Summary  This report examines how the Gates Foundation has approached scaling development outcomes across multiple Program Strategy Teams (PSTs), with a focus on strategies, pathways, partnerships, and lessons learned. In a context of declining global official development assistance and the foundation’s own 20-year wind down timeline (2045 close date), the foundation's catalytic role and ability to support sustainable scale is increasingly critical.   Key findings include:  Scaling approaches vary widely across PSTs but often follow a common innovation-to-scale trajectory, blending ...

Executive Summary This paper is a study of the mainstreaming of scaling within the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation’s (SDC) research and innovation for development program. It focuses on the TRANSFORM program which is funded and coordinated through SDC’s Analysis and Research Section (A&R). This study complements and draws on a two-year “action-research” initiative on the part of the Scaling Community of Practice (SCoP) to study mainstreaming scaling in international development funder organizations.  When the SDC first initiated TRANSFORM ...

Executive summary The Standards and Trade Development Facility (STDF) is a global partnership that promotes improved food safety and animal and plant health in developing countries. STDF helps developing countries meet sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) requirements for imports and exports, based on international standards. It acts through three interlinked workstreams — Global Platform, Knowledge Work, and the Grant Mechanism — to catalyse change by convening, innovating, and learning for effective SPS practices. STDF is supported by donor contributions from Australia, ...

Preface The Scaling Community of Practice (SCoP) launched an action research initiative on mainstreaming scaling in funder organizations in January 2023. This initiative has three purposes: to inform the SCoP members and the wider development community of the current state of support for and operationalization of scaling in a broad range of development funding agencies; to draw lessons for future efforts to mainstream the scaling agenda in the development funding community; and to promote more effective funder support for scaling ...

Executive Summary The Adaptation Fund (AF) has played a pioneering role in delivering community-focused, innovative, and direct-access climate adaptation finance to developing countries. In the context of rapidly increasing global adaptation needs and in response to the COP29 mandate to triple adaptation finance by 2030, the AF is now at a pivotal moment in its scaling journey. This study, conducted as part of the Scaling Community of Practice’s (SCoP) Mainstreaming Initiative, assesses how scaling is currently embedded in the AF’s ...

Executive Summary Echidna Giving is a private funder solely dedicated to getting more girls into better schools to live better lives. It is one of the largest and fastest-growing philanthropic actors dedicated to education in lower-income countries. This case sheds light on how a relatively young philanthropic organization, which began grantmaking in 2008, has rapidly evolved its strategy, systems, and organizational principles in support of scaling impact for girls’ education. Echidna Giving has considered what, where, who, and how they ...