CoP Newsletter 9

Special Feature

Tipping the Scales: Moving from Projects to Scalable Solutions in Fragile States

By Larry Cooley (MSI) (LCooley@msi-inc.com) and Jonathan Papoulidis (World Vision) (jpapouli@WorldVision.org)

By 2030, an estimated 80% of the world’s extreme poor will live in “fragile states” where global conflict is increasingly concentrated and vulnerability to natural disaster and climate change is on the rise. Actions to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in these volatile contexts cannot simply focus on mobilizing resources to sustainably meet basic needs and drive down poverty. Instead, the focus must be on a triple bottom line: mobilize resources, manage risks and address the root causes of fragility. Scaling approaches are instrumental to meeting this triple bottom line because they help address four major challenges in fragile contexts: compromised development pathways through governments and markets, underlying grievances in most service delivery operations, higher contextual risks and crisis, and greater dependence on external resources and piecemeal, one-off aid assistance.

We argue that scaling helps overcome piecemeal aid and compromised development pathways by providing an often missing “organizing framework” for mobilizing and blending diverse partner resources, solving collective action problems and gaining popular support and political authorization. MSI’s is among the most widely disseminated and systematic scaling frameworks (see graphic).

In especially fragile contexts, we find that scaling “ecosystems” are invaluable for meeting development outcomes. These ecosystems are the product of hybrid platforms for scaling which blend the capacities and resources of formal and informal institutions, as well as international partners. Afghanistan’s basic package for health services and the “wave-sequence” approach pioneered by USAID and partners in Uganda, Gaza, Russia, and Afghanistan show what scaling “ecosystems” can accomplish in difficult contexts.

Scaling offers a special inroad into better dealing with risks of complex crises and addressing root causes from broken social contracts, weak institutions, and societal divisions. It can do this by leveraging its organizing framework and the creation of scaling ecosystems to strengthen “social capital”. Social capital builds self-help systems and relationships within communities (bonding), pools capacities and mends divisions across communities (bridging) and raises cooperation, dialogue, legitimacy and accountability between communities and formal institutions (linking). Critically, social capital only works fully when bonding, bridging, and linking activities are done together, in other words, at scale. It can cause harm if pursued separately—such a “linking” activities which strengthen clientism and hinder inclusive development and dialogue within and across communities.

Scaling is not a panacea for fixing fragile states but working at scale and through a social capital lens offers new routes for organizing and aligning resources, capacities and partners to reach millions of people through development, and in the process change underlying social and political narratives, relationships and perceptions of favoritism, resource distribution and existing norms and networks.

Unlike direct political efforts to reach settlements between conflicting parties, scaling-up efforts offer a complementary development pathway to large-scale cooperation, confidence-building and incentives linked to the provision of tangible goods and services for all parties.

Those coordinating these processes must constantly manage to the triple bottom lines of risks, root causes and resource provision, and they must crowd in various disciplines to help. These include the sector specialists in basic services and economic development, as well as experts in humanitarian response, peacebuilding, conflict resolution, political economy, resilience and disaster-risk reduction.

Although donor policies are hard to change, hybrid platforms for scaling can create strong pull factors for donors to join larger networks of in-country partners to pool funds, align priorities and deliver results. While the challenges are extremely high, so are the stakes. We must find ways to tip the scales in favor of hundreds of millions of the most vulnerable people in the hardest places.

Update on the International Development Innovation Alliance (IDIA)

In Newsletter 8 we reported on three recent “Insight” publications (http://insights.globalinnovationexchange. org) on scaling and impact measurement under the umbrella of IDIA. The International Development Innovation Alliance (IDIA) is an informal platform for knowledge exchange and collaboration around development innovation. It currently comprises the following entities investing resources in development innovation: Australian Aid, UNICEF/UNDP, USAID, UKAID (DFID), Canada, World Bank Group, The Rockefeller Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, SIDA, Grand Challenges Canada, the Global Innovation Fund and Results for Development. To date, IDIA has hosted its own working group on Scaling, which developed three IDIA Insights papers. Upon completion of these reports and recognizing the overlap in focus and benefits of engagement with the Scaling CoP, IDIA has decided to dissolve its Scaling working group and to refer members to the Scaling CoP and its respective working groups.

News of the Scaling Up Community of Practice

Sectoral and Thematic Working Groups

Four Working Groups on scaling up in regard to selected topics are active under the umbrella of the Scaling Up Community of Practice. In addition, we have linked up with the Community of Practice on Systematic Approaches to Scale-Up of Family Planning/ Reproductive Health Best Practices. Below is a summary of the initiatives currently underway. If you would like to join one or more of these Working Groups, please contact the lead organizers noted in the first column.

Member News

Billions Institute (General)

In the introduction to their recent article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review (https://ssir.org/articles/entry/unleashing_large_scale_change) on the Billions Institute’s “Model for Unleashing”, Joe McCannon, Becky Margiotta, and Abigail Zier Alyesh write: “Through our work in leading large-scale change efforts in health care (http://www.bmj.com/ content/332/7553/1328.full?ijkey=zZRjNq7zD0bADWf&keytype=ref) and homelessness (https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=LEu2w1FtWME), our coaching for similar initiatives (https://ssir.org/articles/entry/walking_a_different_kind_of_grantmaker_walk) in other sectors, and our review of almost 50 examples of significant social change, we have noticed eight characteristics that are usually present when large numbers of people join together to make the world measurably better. Done together, these actions create a phenomenon we call “unleashing”—in this context, thousands, even millions, of people working with growing energy and creativity to carry forward a shared cause. Unleashing rests on the belief that we already have all we need to make great change, and that we can achieve it by intentionally and thoughtfully leveraging the untapped joy, imagination, skills, and wisdom that individuals, organizations, and communities hold.” Other recent Billions’ Institute publications on scaling include “Inside the Command Center: How successful large-scale change efforts make relentless day-to-day progress” (https://ssir.org/articles/entry/ inside_the_command_center) and “Many Ways to Many A brief compendium of networked learning methods” (https://ssir.org/articles/entry/many_ways_to_many).

Contact: Becky Margiotta (becky@billionsinstitute.com)

Brookings (Education)

Millions Learning Real-time Scaling Lab: In the second phase of the Millions Learning (https://www.brookings.edu/series/millions-learning/) project, the Center for Universal Education (CUE) is launching Real-time Scaling Labs (https://www.brookings.edu/ blog/education-plus-development/2017/10/06/realtime-scaling-the-2018-world-development-report-andgetting-millions-learning/) in partnership with local institutions in a number of countries to focus on generating more evidence and practical recommendations around the process of scaling in global education, encouraging a stronger link between research and practice. These labs will not be physical spaces, but rather a series of in-person and virtual convenings that bring together policymakers, practitioners, and other stakeholders around a particular education initiative to learn from, support, and document efforts to scale as they unfold in real-time. CUE has started to design labs in Côte d’Ivoire and Philadelphia in collaboration with local partners and have other potential labs in the pipeline, including Brazil, Colombia, India, Jordan, Tanzania and Detroit. Insights will be shared across the labs and globally to help inform future scaling efforts. Currently, CUE is in the process of developing a general framework for implementing the Real-time Scaling Labs. Drawing from background research on adaptive learning and implementation science, the Millions Learning report, and other scaling literature from the Scaling Up Community of Practice and beyond, CUE is developing an overarching methodology for all the labs that will be adapted with local partners to the specific context of each lab. CUE will further refine the methodology this fall through additional research, ongoing consultations, and lessons learned through initial testing with the first labs. It welcomes further discussion and feedback from Scaling Up CoP members. See also Jenny Perlman’s recent blog “What does it take to scale quality education? After identifying the core ingredients, real-time scaling labs are to shed light on what works” (http://bold.expert/ what-does-it-take-to-scale-quality-education/).

Contact: Jenny Perlman Robinson (jperlman@brookings.edu) or Molly Curtiss (mcurtiss@brookings.edu)

CIMMYT/GIZ (Agriculture)

As a member of the CGIAR System composed of 15 agricultural research centers, CIMMYT (www.cimmyt. org) leads the work on improving wheat and maizebased farming systems throughout the developing world. CIMMYT works over all scaling stages, from ideation to sustainable scaling. While our researchers themselves are not expected to bring things to scale, there is a need for explicit strategies that inform next users (actors who access research results) about conducive environments for scaling and enable them – through partnerships, capacity development and learning – to apply research results in non-research processes. The transformation from a research-focused to an impact-focused scientific institute requires additional skills and methods to take up that role.

In order to advance both the theoretical and applied understanding of scaling processes to achieve more impact on the ground, CIMMYT hired an expert on scaling of innovations. Lennart Woltering joined CIMMYT in February 2017 as a Germany-supported integrated expert (www.cimonline.de). He is part of a GIZ Task Force on Scaling, constituted of seven additional scaling experts who are based at other CGIAR centers. The Task Force is set-up by GIZ to create a space to think anew about scaling impact from agricultural research.

Lennart is working with partners to develop and test a rapid assessment tool that considers the strength of ten critical “ingredients” required for scaling. It helps to improve the design, implementation and evaluation of projects and programs. Furthermore, Lennart is organizing, with the PPPlab, KIT and IITA, a mini-conference in 2018 on scaling in agriculture to collect, reflect on, and communicate experiences with scaling from a variety of initiatives and organizations, including NGOs, private sector and research and extension organizations from a wide range of sectors.

Contact: Lennart Woltering (L.Woltering@cgiar.org)

Educate! (Education)

Educate!’s article “Breaking New Ground: Four Key Lessons from Launching Education Innovations in Post-Conflict Environments” was published in the journal Childhood Education: Innovations (http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/INKemD2i6Iw4ciVZZAjx/full). Educate! describes the challenges encountered and key lessons learned in scaling its model to the complex, post-conflict region of Northern Uganda.

Contact: Rachael Miller (rachael.miller@experienceeducate.org)

ExpandNet (Reproductive health)

During the past quarter ExpandNet has continued to help projects in South Asia and Africa to use systematic approaches to scaling-up innovations in reproductive health and education. A key emphasis in this work has been to focus on the requirements of scaling from the early stages of project design, using the WHO/ExpandNet tool “Beginning with the end in mind – Planning pilot projects and other programmatic research for successful scaling up”. An example of such an approach to preparing for future scale up has been described by Antony Omimo and colleagues in the forthcoming paper “Applying ExpandNet’s systematic approach to scaling up in an integrated population, health and environment project in East Africa”. In addition, ExpandNet has been working in the last quarter with the Tupange Pamoja Project in its effort to scale up successfully tested innovations from Kenya to Uganda and with the effort of Palladium to scale up Sayana Press, an injectable contraceptive, in Nigeria. In both initiatives, which are at the stage of planning large scale expansion and institutionalization, the WHO/ ExpandNet tool “Nine steps for developing a scaling-up strategy” provided effective guidance. Another key event during the past quarter has been the successful hosting of the technical convening “Scaling up Health and Development Outcomes” described earlier in this newsletter.

Contact: Laura Ghiron (ljghiron@ umich.edu) and Ruth Simmons (rsimmons@umich.edu)

IDRC (General Scaling)

Scaling Science at Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC): In 2015 Canada’s IDRC set out a strategic plan that articulated a desire to generate knowledge, innovation, and solutions at a scale of impact that made the most of the Centre’s investments in research. The plan also articulated that the IDRC would do more to investigate its progress toward this objective, and do so with the same critical eye it requires of the science it supports. In a feature article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review entitled Scaling Science, (https://ssir.org/articles/entry/scaling_science) IDRC begins to share the findings of this reflection. The term “scaling science” purposefully embraces two meanings. The first refers to the objective of scaling scientific research results to achieve impacts that matter. The second meaning refers to the development of a systematic, principle-based science of scaling that we believe can increase the likelihood that innovations will benefit society. The article suggests four guiding principles for scaling innovations, such as programs, policy, products, or practice change.

Contact: Robert McLean (rmclean@idrc.ca)

IFAD (Rural development)

International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)

In the last quarter the IFAD Executive Board approved two country strategic opportunities programmes, for the Dominican Republic (https://webapps.ifad.org/ members/eb/121/docs/EB-2017-121-R-12.pdf) and the Philippines (https://webapps.ifad.org/members/eb/121/ docs/EB-2017-121-R-13.pdf) Both place the scaling up agenda at the centre of the new country strategies. The September Executive Board also approved four new projects with a strong focus on scaling up in ARD: The Pakistan National Poverty Graduation Programme (https://webapps.ifad.org/members/eb/121/docs/ EB-2017-121-R-18-Rev-1.pdf) is representative of a concerted effort to scale up past interventions in poverty alleviation and graduation to a national scale. The project approved for Eastern States of Myanmar (https:// webapps.ifad.org/members/eb/121/docs/EB-2017-121R-17-Rev-1.pdf) is considered by the Government as a model to be eventually scaled up in upland/highland areas of country. Through its investment tools and forward-looking policy support, the project will create the pathways, drivers and spaces for scaling up. The loan to Papua New Guinea for the Markets for Village Farmers Project (https://webapps.ifad.org/members/ eb/121/docs/EB-2017-121-R-19-Project-design-report. pdf) introduces an innovative partnership approach that leverages public and private investment to support business arrangements between agribusiness and smallholder farmers. The project has a strong potential for geographical scaling up within the two current value chains, but also for other agricultural commodities. The monitoring and evaluation system will facilitate knowledge-sharing and scaling up of good practices. Finally innovation and scaling up are the center of the new Rural Empowerment and Agricultural Development Scaling-up Initiative (https://webapps. ifad.org/members/eb/121/docs/EB-2017-121-R-16-Rev-1. pdf) in Indonesia. The programme will adopt an innovation agenda, developing and piloting approaches around smallholder agriculture, particularly in the areas of nutrition, market linkages and rural finance, thus providing incentives to local, community-driven innovation. The M&E system will provide continued evaluation of potential approaches to policy dialogue and scaling up through national financing. The programme’s scaling-up strategy follows IFAD’s Operational framework for scaling up results (https://www.ifad.org/documents/10180/5218aafd-78cf-4565-b4f4-2c5487892df2) (2015) and combines testing and refining of the approach in different settings with strong knowledge management, evidence-based policy dialogue and institutional capacity-building.

IFAD also places strong emphasis on South-South Triangular Cooperation (SSTC) to replicate and/or scale up successful rural transformation approaches among countries of the Global South. An international conference on South-South and Triangular Cooperation (SSTC) entitled “Leveraging Innovations from the Global South to Support Rural Transformation” (https:// www.ifad.org/documents/10180/81d36e02-79ce-4d6dbb7f-0bd16338e616) takes place in Brasilia, Brazil, on 20-21 November 2017. In order to showcase innovative solutions from different countries and situations, the conference includes a “marketplace”, an exhibition space through which participants will be able to interact directly with, and learn from, innovative rural development solutions providers. IFAD recently published South-South and Triangular Cooperation: Highlights from IFAD’s Portfolio (https://www.ifad. org/documents/10180/ab2e121a-8400-42e9-b423dd6843fc769d), a first comprehensive publication on IFAD’s efforts in promoting SSTC.

Contact: Maria Elena Mangiafico (IFAD) (m.mangiafico@ifad.org)

IMAGO (Community-based social enterprises; general)

IMAGO Global Grassroots has worked closely for the past year and half with Fundacìon Paraguaya, to scale up globally a participatory poverty elimination tool. The Poverty Stoplight (http://www.povertystoplight.org/en/) is a unique methodology that gives individuals, families, and enterprises the tools to understand and overcome multidimensional poverty. Fundación Paraguaya (http://www.fundacionparaguaya.org.py/?lang=en) is a self-sustainable social enterprise that has spearheaded microfinance and entrepreneurship in Paraguay for the last 30 years, and received many awards including the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship.

IMAGO, in partnership with Poverty Stoplight staff, developed a multi-year scaling-up strategy that includes strategic channels for global growth and milestones for implementation. The Stoplight now has four hubs around the world, including the most recent Mexico City hub (https://medium.com/@PStoplight/mexico-gets-the-green-light-4537b207807), which launched in September. IMAGO spent an intensive week this October in Asunción with the Poverty Stoplight team and staff from the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), working on strengthening the methodology and evaluation (http://www. fundacionparaguaya.org.py/?p=6305) components of the scaling up plan.

Isabel Guerrero, IMAGO’s Director, is teaching for a fourth year a course on Scaling Up for Development Impact (https://www.hks.harvard.edu/courses/scaling-development-impact) at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. The course focuses on what can we learn from the experience of scaling up in different institutional settings. The challenges, and importance, of reaching scale for all types of organizations working toward development goals is a critical issue for Governments, the private sector, NGOs and the Donor Community. Isabel’s course (http://imagogg. org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/DEV-320M_2017.pdf) uses an analytic framework for understanding the methods and importance of scaling up. Analysis and discussion is driven by case studies that provide students the opportunity to examine cross-cutting issues that impact all sectors and types of organizations seeking to scale development innovations. Guest lecturers this year included Larry Cooley, who led a discussion with students on how scaling up is a change management process and requires intermediation for it to succeed.

Contact: Isabel Guerrero (isabelguerrero001@gmail. com) and Ellen Massey (emassey@imagogg.org)

Innovation for Poverty Action (Health)

Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) recently launched a new Peace & Recovery Program (P&R), under the academic leadership of Chris Blattman. P&R will create and fund research that focuses on reducing violence and promoting peace, reducing “fragility,” and preventing, coping with, and recovering from crises. The Program will hold Requests for Proposals for research projects semi-annually during the next 3 years, and possibly longer. You can read more about P&R at www.poverty-action.org/peace

Contact: Sebastian Chaskel (schaskel@poverty-action. org)

J-PAL (Measurement and evaluation)

Karthik Muralidharan and Paul Niehaus, “Experimentation at Scale” (http://econweb.ucsd. edu/~kamurali/papers/Published%20Articles/ Experimentation_at_Scale.pdf): Professors at UC San Diego and affiliated researchers at J-PAL, have a forthcoming paper in the Journal of Economic Perspectives on the value of large-scale experimentation of anti-poverty programs. The paper makes the case for greater use of randomized experiments “at scale”. They review various critiques of experimental program evaluation in developing countries, and discuss how experimenting at scale along three specific dimensions – the size of the sampling frame, the number of units treated, and the size of the unit of randomization – can help alleviate them.

Mary Ann Bates and Rachel Glennerster, “The Generalizability Puzzle” (SSIR) (http://econweb.ucsd.edu/~kamurali/papers/Published%20Articles/ Experimentation_at_Scale.pdf): This short paper examines how well-designed research evaluating the effectiveness of ideas (and not just programs) to address poverty can be a useful in informing the design and scale up of programs in other contexts.

Contact: John Floretta (J-PAL) (jfloretta@povertyactionlab.org)

MacArthur Foundation and MSI (General Scaling)

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation partnered with MSI to provide support to the eight teams chosen as semi-finalists in the Foundation’s ambitious 100&Change competition (https://www. macfound.org/programs/100change/) to award a $100 million grant to solve a critical problem of our time. The eight proposals were selected as the strongest among 1904 submissions, and the MSI support was intended to ensure that each of these projects had a viable and compelling scaling plan (https://www.macfound.org/ press/perspectives/refining-and-scaling-proposals/) and the best possible prospects of attracting other donors. On December 11, 2017 (https://www.macfound.org/ events/200/), 100&Change finalists will present their proposals to an in-person audience in Chicago and global audience via livestream. MacArthur’s Board of Directors will select the recipient, and later announce the winner of 100&Change.

Contact: Kristen Molyneaux, MacArthur (kmolynea@ macfound.org) or Larry Cooley, MSI (lcooley@msi-inc.com)

National Institute of Health (NIH) (Health)

The Fogarty International Center at the National Institutes of Health is organizing a panel discussion (https://academyhealth.confex.com/academyhealth/2017di/meetingapp.cgi/Session/12081) at the 10th Annual Conference on the Science of Dissemination and Implementation, (http://www.academyhealth.org/ events/site/10th-annual-conference-science-dissemination-and-implementation-health) taking place in Arlington, VA from December 4-6, 2017. The panel will explore how implementation science – the study of methods for integrating evidence-based interventions into policy and practice – can be better utilized to help global health practitioners understand and overcome the many barriers to scale. In this panel discussion, experts will present frameworks and case studies on scaling up health technologies in low- and middle-income countries. The panel will include Brian Mittman from Kaiser Permanente Southern California, Laura Ghiron from the ExpandNet Secretariat, and Nathaniel Moller from Jhpiego who will collectively represent the perspectives of technology developers, implementers, and implementation scientists. The discussion will identify knowledge gaps and pertinent research questions for implementation science.

Contact: Amit Mistry (NIH/FIC) (amit.mistry@nih.gov)

STIR Education (Education)

Sharath Jeevan of STIR Education argues in his article “From ‘Lean Start-Up’ to ‘Lean Collaboration’” (https:// ssir.org/articles/entry/from_lean_start_up_to_lean_collaboration) that we need to rethink our current paradigm around government adoption of promising social innovations. Instead of trying to create a perfect, fully formed innovation in isolation, a better approach might be for NGOs to adopt a ‘lean collaboration’ lens. This lens sees governments as a co-creator and partner in the innovation process from the outset. This means allowing early government feedback to influence the innovation itself, applying hard cost constraints and sticking to them, and using existing people and structures in government systems to deploy the innovation rather than build a parallel system. If these conditions are met, he argues that an ‘inside-outside’ approach is possible: an innovation can be owned and run by government but still have a distinct culture, values and feel, that has a knock on effect for the culture of the wider government system itself. This article is based on STIR’s own experience of seeing governments in India and Uganda ask it to support them to scale its teacher intrinsic motivation approach to 60 million children over the next 5 years. The article captures some of the early, sometimes painful learning along that journey. Contact: Sharath Jeevan (sjeevan@stireducation.org)

UNDP (Agriculture; social entrepreneurship)

A recent UNDP report “Scaling Inclusive Business Models at the Nexus of Poverty and Environment” (https://www.businesscalltoaction.org/sites/default/files/resources/BCtA_ScalingInclusiveBusinessPhilippines_ April2017__0.pdf) focuses on the role of inclusive business at the nexus of poverty and environment in the Philippines. It showcases the potential of agroforestry companies’ inclusive business models to achieve social impact at scale while benefiting the environment. The report emphasizes the importance of supporting these models at the country level by establishing partnership ecosystems among public, private and civil-society sectors in order to scale up and amplify their impact.

In his recent blog “Creating a new norm: moving innovations from the margins to the mainstream”, Ben Kumpf reports on lessons from the three years of work of the UNDP’s Innovation Facility, and summarizes the next steps the Facility is taking to build these lessons and make its work even more relevant to the countries and people it is serving (https://www.oecd.org/governance/observatory-public-sector-innovation/blog/page/creatinganewnormmovinginnovationfromthemarginstothemainstream.htm).

USAID (General Scaling)

USAID’s Feed the Future released a new research strategy recently, which includes a focus on supporting technology scaling: “The U.S. Government’s Global Food Security Research Strategy – Reducing Global Hunger, Malnutrition and Poverty Through Science, Technology & Innovation” (https://feedthefuture.gov/sites/default/files/resource/files/GFSS_ResearchStrategy.pdf).

Wilson Center (Health)

In his recent blog “Creating a new norm: moving innovation from the margins to the mainstream”, Ben Kumpf reports on lessons from three years of work of the UNDP’s Innovation Facility), and summarizes the next The MCSP Wilson Center Seminar Series will feature a conference on “Helping Countries Successfully Achieve Sustainable Impact at Scale in the New Global Health Landscape” on May 22-24, 2018. The objectives of the conference are (1) to articulate a paradigm for effective scale up from the point of view of the national health system; (2) to explore the appropriate roles of global coalitions in promoting the successful scale up of health interventions, and (3) to understand promising emerging country examples of scale up of a diverse set of health interventions included in national plans.

Contact: Jim Ricca (Jim.Ricca@jhpiego.org)

World Bank (Social enterprise innovation)

The World Bank recently published a wealth of documentation and reports on its social enterprise innovation research on the Open Knowledge Repository of the WBG and the Innovation Policy Platform’s module on Inclusive Innovation for Development: https://www.innovationpolicyplatform.org/inclusive-innovation-development

Publications and Blogs

We list here selected publications that have come across our desks and that we think you might be interested in. They deal with scaling up successful development innovations across a wide range of topics. The list below has been kindly provided by Molly Curtiss of Brookings.

• “Not drawn to scale? RCTs and Education Reform in Developing Countries.” (http://www.riseprogramme.org/content/ not-drawn-scale-rcts-and-education-reform-developing-countries) Alejandro Ganimian looks at the debate of using RCTs to identify scalable interventions in education reform and identifies problems with the criticisms. (12 September 2017)
• Sharath Jeevan. “Lessons from STIR Education: Partnering with governments for scale.” (http://www. org/blog/lessons-stir-education-partnering-governments-scale) Founder and CEO of STIR Education Sharath Jeevan shares lessoned learned about scaling with governments over the past five years. (11 October 2017)
• Three scaling focused papers from the American Economic Association Journal of Economic Perspectives Fall 2017 issue (https://www.aeaweb. org/issues/488)
  • Banerjee et al. 2017. “From Proof of Concept to Scalable Policies: Challenges and Solutions, with an Application.” (http://www.nber.org/ papers/w22931)This paper describes the journey from the original concept to the design and evaluation of a scalable policy by evaluating a series of strategies that aimed to integrate the NGO Pratham’s Teaching at the Right Level methodology into elementary schools in India. The paper uses this example to draw general lessons about using randomized control trials to design scalable policies.
  • Muralidharan and Niehaus. 2017. “Experimentation at Scale.” (http://www.nber. org/papers/w23957) This paper makes the case for greater use of randomized experiments “at scale.” It reviews various critiques of experimental program evaluation in developing countries, and discusses how experimenting at scale along three specific dimensions can help alleviate the concerns raised.
  • Al-Ubaydli et al. 2017. “Scaling for Economists: Lessons from the Non-Adherence Problem in the Medical Literature.” (https://www.aeaweb.org/ articles?id=10.1257/jep.31.4.125) This paper draws on the medical literature to propose potential remedies to the issue of diminishing returns of behavior-change interventions at scale.
• Perlman Robinson and Curtiss Education Plus Development blog “Real-time Scaling, the 2018 Development Report, and Getting Millions Learning.” (https://www.brookings.edu/blog/ education-plus-development/2017/10/06/realtime-scaling-the-2018-world-development-reportand-getting-millions-learning/) (6 October 2017)
• The International Centre for Social Franchising’s Social Replication Toolkit (https://toolkit.the-icsf.org/Home)

Other News

Andrew Kuper, Founder and CEO of Leapfrog shared this information in his newsletter of September 12, 2017: “This year marks a decade since LeapFrog’s founding. So it was an extra special moment when last quarter our companies reached over 100 million people with healthcare or financial tools. Over 93.8 million of those people are emerging consumers, typically in Asia and Africa, living on $2 to $10 USD PPP a day. But here’s the proof of Profit with Purpose: Our portfolio companies, have grown at 43.3% on average since we invested, and realised top tier private equity returns on exit. Last week, we were honoured to be named by Fortune Magazine as one of the top 5 Companies to Change the World, alongside the likes of Apple and Novartis, and ranking above the likes of Tencent, Unilever and Airbnb. This followed an independent review by Harvard professor Michael Porter and FSG. Fortune captures the essence of the ranking list as ‘Definitive Proof That It’s Possible to Do Right by Your Shareholders, Your Employees, Your Customers, and the World at Large.’ You can read more here.” (http://fortune.com/2017/09/07/these-50-companies-arechanging-the-world/)

Contact: Andrew Kuper (team@ leapfroginvest.com)

Editor’s Note

The number 2 on the Fortune Magazine Companies to Change the World list is DSM, “a food-science company [that] takes the fight against malnutrition to famine’s front lines. This year, as decimating famine threatens 20 million lives in Africa and the Middle East, DSM is on the front lines; the fortified-nutrition products it helped the World Food Programme develop reach approximately 31 million people every year. The company is working on longer-term ways to eliminate hunger and malnutrition too: Take African Improved Foods, its creatively-financed joint venture with the Rwandan government and development agencies, aimed at boosting the local food-processing industry. AIF’s Kigali-based plant, which produces fortified cereal—much of it for WFP—is operated by East Africans, and its cereals are made with locally-grown maize and soybeans procured from 7,500 smallholder farmers.” (Source: (http://fortune.com/2017/09/07/ these-50-companies-are-changing-the-world/)

[1] Excerpted from a lengthier blogpost published by the Brookings Institution, Future Development, entitled  “Scalable solutions in fragile states.”  https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2017/11/28/scalable-solutions-in-fragile-states/