Scaling up programs for the rural poor: IFAD’s experience, lessons and prospects (phase 2)

This paper summarizes the results of the IFAD Institutional Scaling Up Review (Phase 2), which was conducted under a grant from IFAD to the Brookings Institution.

The thousand-flowers-blooming approaches to rural innovation and learning as adopted over the past decade have led to an endless list of “good practices.” But these, with a few notable exceptions, did not add up to deliver impact at scale. Improving on institutional efficiency and enhancing development impact are therefore two daunting challenges currently facing governments and like-minded partners amidst growing concerns about the sustainability of mixed progress towards Millennium Development Goal 1 targets. In other words, linking the dots between rural innovations, learning and scaling up will require a more systematic and proactive approach to replicating, adapting and expanding successful models of interventions to reach more people in a sustainable manner.