Scaling up the impact of development interventions: Lessons from a review of UNDP country programs

Abstract

This paper reports on a review of whether and how the programs and projects supported by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in four countries (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Egypt, Moldova, and Tajikistan) apply a systematic approach to scaling up in pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The paper applies an operational framework consisting of six basic questions: (i) Is there a pathway to scale? (ii) What is the problem to be solved, the vision and target of scale? (iii) What ideas, innovations or models are to be scaled up? (iv) How can the enabling conditions (drivers and spaces) be put in place? (v) How about the sequencing of key steps? (vi) Does monitoring and evaluation support learning for scaling up? The paper concludes that many of UNDP’s programs and projects pursue pathways to scale, but that overall a more systematic operational approach along the lines suggested in this paper would be desirable.