OECD Scaling Learning Journeys Series: Strengthening Institutional Capabilities to Mainstream Scaling in Development Agencies
By Parnika Jhunjhunwala (OECD Innovation for Development Facility) and Benjamin Kumpf (OECD Innovation for Development Facility)
Summary of the OECD i30 Event | 4th October 2022
The persistent challenges facing humanity in the 21st century are complex and systemic in nature. This is illustrated by the breadth of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and their mutual interdependence. Without political will and rapid, ubiquitous innovation, the ambitious goals of the 2030 Agenda are unlikely to be met. For diverse innovations to unfold impact, development funders and partners have to establish clarity on the appropriate scale and then work systematically towards sustained impact.
Despite the impact that many successful innovations in development co-operation have had over recent decades, such as cash-transfer programmes, new and improved vaccinations, or deworming initiatives, there are few examples of international development organisations consistently and systematically innovating and reaching relevant scale over prolonged periods of time.
To advance better practice, the OECD Innovation for Development Facility, partnered with OECD Evalnet, the OECD Results Community of Practice and with the Scaling Up Community of Practice, Million Lives Collective and the International Development Innovation Alliance.
Together, the partners designed a three-part learning journey for the OECD i30 Group, the peer-learning mechanism on development innovation for members of the OECD Development Assistance Committee. The first session on 7 September 2022 provided an overview of the current evidence-base and highlighted perspectives from innovators who reached considerable scale and their reflections on appropriate support from funders. The second session on 4 October focused on strengthening the institutional capabilities of development funders on scaling.
We were joined by the Head of Development Innovation Unit at Global Affairs Canada (GAC), Amy Thomas, and experts Amy Etherington from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and Johannes Linn, co-founder of the Global Community of Practice on Scaling Development Outcomes.
Echoed by all our speakers was the need for incorporating a scaling vision into programme design in the very early stages. There could be multiple pathways to scale but having an explicit scaling objective can lead to strong positive shifts regarding scaling in an organisation. Pointed out by Johannes as one of the six key success factors crucial for mainstreaming scaling, he highlighted that organisations must develop a vision of scale as part of their mission and mindset. This vision and objective should be commensurate with the size, mandate, and resources of the organisation to be achieved realistically.
This was indeed the case for IDRC, which underwent an evaluation of its 2015-2020 Strategic Plan, particularly evaluating IDRC’s strategy to scale research results. As shared by Amy E., it was found that the introduction of an explicit scaling objective at IDRC led to positive internal effects on their staff – and they showed a strong sense of shared purpose, greater collaboration within programmes and a change in staff mindsets which allowed them to incorporate a scaling vision earlier on to inform research design and processes.
Amy E. also flagged the importance of adopting a flexible approach to implement IDRC’s scaling objective. Given its diverse programme range and subsequent diverse conceptualisations of scaling, IDRC invested significantly in learning and experimentation/exploration projects. They not only developed tailored tools to support scaling, but also undertook projects to collectively and systematically document challenges and learnings on scaling. This included initiatives such as Scaling Science (to review scaling efforts in IDRC funded projects) and the ScalingXchange (a team of scaling experts from the global south offering their perspectives and experience on how to improve scaling).
As also discussed in the first session, one of the biggest impediments to scaling is the continuance of the traditional one-off project approach, or the ‘project mentality’. There is a need to adapt this standard approach and move towards building a systematic focus on sustainable scaling beyond a project’s end. Johannes mentioned operational procedures as a key success factor for mainstreaming scaling. Do current operational guidelines and criteria for project selection, project supervision or monitoring, ex-post evaluation etc. incorporate elements of scaling? Shifting operational emphasis from disbursement targets or narrow project results to asking ‘what happens when the project ends’ and embedding a scaling focus in formal programme operations is absolutely essential. Amy E. also spoke to this point referring to the change in IDRC’s mechanisms and priorities in the way they provide support to their grantees, particularly on time horizons of scaling. This included adopting a long-term perspective and experimenting with flexible funding mechanisms to support scaling. For instance, IDRC came up with ‘synergy and opportunity funds’ for grantees to build on existing work or take advantage of emerging opportunities to scale. It also provided ‘rapid response funding’ that allowed grantees to respond to policy-maker requests.
Organisational capacity and resources make up another key success pillar for mainstreaming scaling. The IDRC evaluation found that a scaling vision is also accompanied by evolving staff roles, i.e., staff are required to think and act more strategically and opportunistically. The role of a funder/grant maker is expanded to include that of being a knowledge broker, relationship manager, coordinator, strategic thinker, knowledge translator among others. This evolving role requires formal recognition to ensure that sufficient time, resources, and incentives to carry out these tasks are carved into staff roles. Johannes also laid emphasis on the need for setting aside sufficient organisational resources to undertake scaling systematically. Organisations need to ensure that additional skills, trainings, or resources are available for staff to deliver on this expanded set of responsibilities and do not just remain ‘unfunded mandates’.
Institutional policies were also identified as a key driver for mainstreaming scaling. Are policies on programming, procurement, funding instruments, and partnerships supportive of scaling? This could include policies such as multi-tranche funding to support long-term projects or providing the appropriate type of funding instrument at the appropriate stage of the scaling pathway. Amy Thomas mentioned one such project being jointly funded by IDRC and GAC, namely the Canadian International Food Security Research Fund (CIFSRF) that tests and scales up solutions to increase food production. This fund focused on piloting/identifying potential solutions in Phase 1 and targeted the scaling up of the most promising results in Phase 2. Global Affairs Canada will now support the further scaling of impact of a number of selected CIFSRF Phase 2 projects in Sub-Saharan Africa. Special focus will be placed on achieving the sustainability of development results through innovative partnerships, women’s empowerment and gender transformative change in food security, nutrition, and livelihoods programming.
Johannes also invited us to think of leadership that supports mainstreaming with a much broader lens, perhaps as a ‘community of leadership’ that must work together. We often think of leadership as top executives or senior management or the veterans at the top of the organisation, but leaders and supporters for mainstreaming do and must also come from the trenches. This includes leveraging the momentum created by the champions from middle management and staff as well as external leadership, including champions and consultants that bring important evidence from outside the organisation. Successful mainstreaming thus requires gaining support across all kinds of leaderships.
The sixth key success factor included building partnerships and networks for scaling. Increasing aid proliferation (the number of entities involved in the financing and delivery of official finance) and aid fragmentation (the number of donor-funded activities) calls for funding organisations to find ways of greater aid-cooperation and aid-coordination. Scaling cannot be carried out with a ‘do-it alone’ mentality. To achieve impact at scale, diligent coordination and cooperation among funders is indispensable. Networks and partnerships make room for greater learning and opportunities for sharing lessons; however, it is equally important to assess the trade-offs of collaboration. Are the benefits from more effective scaling greater than the costs (time and resources invested) of partnerships? Greater collaboration to drive scaling might be extremely helpful and even necessary, but it must be a strategic choice and not the norm.
Amy T. in her opening remarks, referenced the Whistler Principles, which hold at its heart the principles of inclusive innovation and leave no one behind to achieve impact at optimal scale. However, there is a need to go beyond inclusive innovation and also think of inclusive scaling. As stated by Amy E., “scaling is an intervention in itself that can introduce unforeseen effects and risks and we need to be conscious of this.” The IDRC evaluation revealed that although they made systematic efforts to mainstream gender considerations in the research process, they found that considerations of how scaling research results affects gender and equity were not documented to the same extent. Understanding the equity of impact and the possible negative effects of scaling for specific groups must be an explicit part of any scaling strategy. IDRC’s guiding principles for scaling impact provides a framework for improving the integration of equity and inclusion into scaling efforts.
The focus of this session was on achieving greater clarity on some of the key institutional factors that must be strengthened to make this transition and mainstream scaling. Along with the Global Community of Practice on Scaling Development Outcomes, INDEF will launch a study on scaling practices and institutional capabilities across the DAC, to benchmark good practices, propose practical steps for improvements and to build a shared language and understanding of scaling to support better innovation practices. Based on these first two sessions and insights of the benchmarking study, we aim to jointly work towards developing and testing OECD DAC Scaling Principles.
The next workshop, scheduled for January 2023, will dive deeper to discuss how open innovation instruments such as challenge funds can be designed and leveraged to support effective and sustainable scaling. The i30 learning journey sessions are open to all staff members of bilateral funder organisations. If you work in a DAC member agency or ministry and are interested to learn with and from peers and experts, please send a message to benjamin.kumpf@oecd.org.
