Scaling Up the Impact of Development Programs Must Complement Other Approaches to Achieve the SDGs and Climate Goals

The international community risks falling substantially short in its efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement climate targets by 2030. Efforts to reach the goals have focused on raising more financial resources, on tracking progress and stimulating policy reform at national and local levels, and on innovation. This article reviews these approaches and concludes that they are indeed necessary, but not sufficient, since they do not include a focus on systematically scaling successful development and climate projects and programs aimed at achieving the SDGs and climate targets. The article goes on to present a tested approach to scaling and an example of its application in four countries. A key element of the common scaling approaches, namely the identification of a clear vision of scale, i.e., a scale target, can be linked to the SDGs and climate targets, though this has not been done in the literature or in practice so far. If the SDGs and climate targets are to be attained, it will be essential that programs and projects are systematically designed and implemented to achieve scaling pathways explicitly linked with these targets. Increased financing, tracking of progress and policy reform, and innovation will be important complements to an effective scaling approach.