SCALING UP IN AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, AND NUTRITION


IFAD: Adopting a New Systematic Approach to Scaling Up in Agricultural and Rural Development | CHEIKH M. SOURANG


Focus 19 • brIeF 17 • June 2012


agriculture as a source of growth and as an effective tool for poverty reduction and environmental stewardship. With a target of taking 80 million rural poor out of poverty between 2012 and 2015, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has positioned itself as a significant financier for low-income developing countries and fragile states, a provider of knowledge services to middle-income countries, and a source of inspiration for like-minded partners. IFAD has extensive experience helping countries scale up successful interventions—sometimes by design, but more often by serendipity. Now the challenge is to become more systematic and proactive about going from pilot to scale and to help countries operate rural development programs at scale in a sustainable manner.


C Taking stock of IFAD’s scaling-up experience


In 2009 IFAD undertook an institutional scaling-up review. Experts from the Brookings Institution conducted a desk analysis of IFAD’s country and thematic operational approaches. The review also considered IFAD’s corporate strategy, operational policies, processes, and instruments as well as its budgetary and human resource management practices to determine whether they were supportive of a systematic scaling-up approach to development. In parallel, IFAD’s Independent Evaluation Office carried out a corporate evaluation of IFAD’s approach to innovation and scaling up. This first phase of analytical and evaluative work was completed in 2010 and led to a number of important conclusions:


• Scaling up is mission-critical for IFAD if it is to achieve its goals of reducing rural poverty.


• IFAD has effectively supported the scaling up of successful agricultural and rural development programs in a number of countries, including in Peru. (See brief #4.)


• However, this has not always been the result of a systematic operational approach, but is often due to fortuitous circumstances.


• Therefore, IFAD’s strategies, operational policies, processes, and instruments, as well as its budgeting and staff incentives, need to evolve to support a more proactive and systematic approach to scaling up.


Consequently, IFAD management decided to expand its


understanding of the scaling-up experience by carrying out eight in-depth country reviews and four cross-cutting thematic studies. The latter cover (i) scaling up through support for sectoral strategies and partnerships, (ii) scaling up through institutional capacity development, and (iii) providing support for scaling up in value chains and adapting results to management and monitoring and


oncerns about insufficient progress toward the Millennium Development Goals have prompted a renewed interest in


evaluation to facilitate effective efforts. This analytical work is ongoing, again with the support of the Brookings Institution, and will help inform future operational decisions by IFAD management when it is completed by the end of 2012.


Building on the lessons of the stock-taking


In the meantime, IFAD’s management has moved ahead on a number of fronts to ensure that scaling up is effectively mainstreamed in its operational activities. First, scaling up is explicitly incorporated as an institutional objective in the formulation of IFAD’s Medium Term Strategic Framework 2011–14. Second, IFAD management, with the strong support and


encouragement of its member countries, committed to pursuing a scaling-up agenda under the program to be funded by the ninth replenishment of IFAD’s resources during 2013–15, approved by IFAD’s Governing Council in February 2012. Third, management concluded that planning for operations


and impact at scale has to begin as early as possible in each country, specifically with the formulation—in close collaboration with government—of IFAD’s Country Strategy and Programme. This is a results-oriented framework for IFAD’s medium-term country engagement through investments, policy dialogue, partnerships, and knowledge management. Projects identified for preparation, financing, and implementation will henceforth include a plan for scaling up whenever applicable. The plans will identify pathways for scaling up, the drivers that can be mobilized, and the spaces (fiscal, environmental, policy, institutional, political, cultural, partnership, and learning) needed for a successful model to be taken to scale. To this end, IFAD’s internal guidelines for formulation,


implementation, and monitoring of country programs have been adjusted to reflect a scaling-up mind-set. Likewise, project preparation guidelines have now been adapted to include a set of standard “guiding questions” that require the project management team to explore the scaling-up pathways, drivers, and spaces, and the related monitoring and evaluation practices. The guidance given to reviewers in IFAD’s project-quality-enhancement and -assurance processes is also being progressively refined to reflect the institutional scaling-up agenda. Fourth, deepening country and local leadership in strategy,


project design, and execution will strengthen ownership and commitment to replication and scaling up. IFAD-financed projects would increasingly capitalize and rely on country systems— strengthening them when appropriate—so that successful activities can be more easily absorbed into mainstream government, NGO, and private sector activities when project financing ends. IFAD will devote more effort to building local capacity for managing scaling- up efforts, especially among national and local governments, farmers organizations, and civil society. Fifth, impact at scale requires enabling government policy


and an adequate public expenditure program. Policy that does not enable private investment in agriculture, for example, will inhibit


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