Innovation in agricultural development can work wonders, as IFAD has demonstrated in more than three decades of impactful work with smallholder farmers around the world. But sometimes innovation isn’t enough. Sometimes you have to build upon your experience, think bigger and take successful innovation to scale.

For IFAD, now is one of those times.

As part of its most recent replenishment of funding from member states, IFAD has set ambitious, accelerated targets for reducing rural poverty between now and 2015. To reach those targets – and to help meet the Millennium Development Goals on poverty reduction – the organization plans to leverage its investments more strategically with the private sector and other partners. Equally important, IFAD’s institutional mind-set is in the midst of transformation towards a greater focus on “scaling up.”

Understanding the methodology

Development professionals sometimes use this phrase loosely in reference to expanding the size of individual projects. In reality, though, scaling up refers to effectively reducing poverty through the cumulative impact of multiple projects involving government and rural stakeholders, and like-minded partners.

A dialogue on this issue has been under way in the development community for several years. Gradually, it has fostered a common understanding of the concepts behind scaling up, as well as the actions that governments and their partners must take to extend the reach of effective, sustainable interventions.

The methodology of scaling up begins with a vision for the long-range impact of an existing or new intervention, along with a time horizon for taking it to scale. Next comes the identification of individual and institutional champions who are committed to the project’s success – along with the drivers (including market forces) that will push it forward.

With assistance from the champions, whatever obstacles may exist – be they policy-related, institutional, fiscal, cultural, social or other impediments – are cleared to create spaces where the project can thrive. The conditions thus established constitute the pathway to successfully scaling up.

A systematic approach

Over the past two years, many of IFAD’s Country Programme Managers have adopted this methodology in designing, implementing and evaluating projects. At the same time, IFAD has hosted various events on scaling up rural poverty reduction at the global, regional and country levels.

Last October, for example, a two-day global workshop in Rome brought together representatives of IFAD member states, partners from the public and private sectors, research networks, private foundations, NGOs and farmers’ organisations.

IFAD President Kanayo F. Nwanze opened the workshop with remarks that conveyed his determination to advance the scaling-up agenda. “Scaling up requires country leadership and collective efforts from partners, if we want to ensure successful interventions in agriculture and rural development,” said Nwanze.

While progress on reducing rural poverty has been slower than anticipated in many parts of the world, he added, success stories on rural innovation abound. The question is whether these successes, taken as a whole, add up to reducing and ultimately eradicating rural poverty.

“IFAD has many good examples of scaling up,” said Nwanze. “We realise, however, that we need to be more proactive and we need to be more systematic.”

‘Replicating, adapting and sustaining’

Participants in the October workshop went on to attend a series of learning and partnership-building sessions informed, in part, by a 2010 review of IFAD’s approach to scaling up its operations.

Commissioned by IFAD, the review was carried out by the Wolfensohn Centre for Development at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. Using selected country case studies and thematic assessments, it examined IFAD’s strategic framework and operations through a scaling-up lens.

The Brookings report, Scaling up the fight against rural poverty, defines the key phrase as “expanding, replicating, adapting and sustaining successful policies, programmes or projects in geographic space and over time to reach a greater number of rural poor.” Here is a sampling of the report’s main conclusions about IFAD’s commitment to supporting scaled-up interventions:

• IFAD knows how to scale up and has done so successfully many times. Examples include a series of loans addressing the needs of small-scale farmers in the Peruvian highlands, and successive projects providing credit for rural enterprises in Moldova.
• But scaling up deserves greater and more explicit attention in IFAD’s operational work than it has received to date. A more systematic approach is needed to turn IFAD into a scaling-up institution.
• In managing this institutional change, it’s critical to remember that scaling up is a means to an end, not the end itself. As IFAD scales up, it should avoid creating excessively burdensome processes and spreading its human resources too thin.

Next steps

Based on these and other findings – and in light of its ambitious targets – IFAD is now making adjustments to its operating model with an eye toward scaling up more consistently.

The next steps for IFAD include expanding its knowledge base on the scaling-up process through in-depth case studies and thematic reviews, which are under way. At the same time, the organization is developing guidance and training tools, along with other support for building the capacity to scale up at the country level. And management will review IFAD’s operational instruments, budgeting and human resources management practices to ensure that they facilitate scaling up.

As the Brookings report concludes: “Success is not merely the satisfactory, but limited impact of an individual project; success is the implementation of a scaling up pathway that over time substantially reduces rural poverty.”

For millions of smallholder farmers, that pathway might just lead to a more prosperous, sustainable and food-secure future.