elo Leave no one behind: Time for specifics on the sustainable development goals By webfeeds.brookings.edu Published On :: Tue, 08 Oct 2019 16:29:59 +0000 A central theme of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) is a pledge “that no one will be left behind.” Since the establishment of the SDGs in 2015, the importance of this commitment has only grown in political resonance throughout all parts of the globe. Yet, to drive meaningful results, the mantra needs to be matched… Full Article
elo Building the SDG economy: Needs, spending, and financing for universal achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals By webfeeds.brookings.edu Published On :: Mon, 21 Oct 2019 18:56:39 +0000 Pouring several colors of paint into a single bucket produces a gray pool of muck, not a shiny rainbow. Similarly, when it comes to discussions of financing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), jumbling too many issues into the same debate leads to policy muddiness rather than practical breakthroughs. For example, the common “billions to trillions”… Full Article
elo Bye-bye, billions to trillions – Financing the UN Development System By webfeeds.brookings.edu Published On :: Tue, 22 Oct 2019 19:07:26 +0000 Full Article
elo A social distancing reading list from Brookings Global Economy and Development By webfeeds.brookings.edu Published On :: Fri, 27 Mar 2020 15:27:31 +0000 During this unusual time of flexible schedules and more time at home, many of us may have increased opportunities for long-form reading. Below, the scholars and staff from the Global Economy and Development program at Brookings offer their recommendations for books to read during this time. Max Bouchet recommends The Nation City: Why Mayors Are… Full Article
elo Scaling Up Development Interventions: A Review of UNDP's Country Program in Tajikistan By webfeeds.brookings.edu Published On :: Tue, 21 Feb 2012 12:12:00 -0500 A key objective of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is to assist its member countries in meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). UNDP pursues this objective in various ways, including through analysis and advice to governments on the progress towards the MDGs (such as support for the preparation and monitoring Poverty Reduction Strategies, or PRSs, in poor countries), assistance for capacity building, and financial and technical support for the preparation and implementation of development programs. The challenge of achieving the MDGs remains daunting in many countries, including Tajikistan. To do so will require that all development partners, i.e., the government, civil society, private business and donors, make every effort to scale up successful development interventions. Scaling up refers to “expanding, adapting and sustaining successful policies, programs and projects on different places and over time to reach a greater number of people.” Interventions that are successful as pilots but are not scaled up will create localized benefits for a small number of beneficiaries, but they will fail to contribute significantly to close the MDG gap. This paper aims to assess whether and how well UNDP is supporting scaling up in its development programs in Tajikistan. While the principal purpose of this assessment was to assist the UNDP country program director and his team in Tajikistan in their scaling up efforts, it also contributes to the overall growing body of evidence on the scaling up of development interventions worldwide. Downloads Download Full Paper Authors Johannes F. Linn Full Article
elo Scaling Up in Agriculture, Rural Development, and Nutrition By webfeeds.brookings.edu Published On :: Wed, 27 Jun 2012 14:06:00 -0400 Editor's Note: The "Scaling up in Agriculture, Rural Development and Nutrition" publication is a series of 20 briefs published by the International Food Policy Research Institute. To read the full publication, click here. Taking successful development interventions to scale is critical if the world is to achieve the Millennium Development Goals and make essential gains in the fight for improved agricultural productivity, rural incomes, and nutrition. How to support scaling up in these three areas, however, is a major challenge. This collection of policy briefs is designed to contribute to a better understanding of the experience to date and the lessons for the future. Scaling up means expanding, replicating, adapting, and sustaining successful policies, programs, or projects to reach a greater number of people; it is part of a broader process of innovation and learning. A new idea, model, or approach is typically embodied in a pilot project of limited impact; with monitoring and evaluation, the knowledge acquired from the pilot experience can be used to scale up the model to create larger impacts. The process generally occurs in an iterative and interactive cycle, as the experience from scaling up feeds back into new ideas and learning. The authors of the 20 policy briefs included here explore the experience of scaling up successful interventions in agriculture, rural development, and nutrition under five broad headings: (1) the role of rural community engagement, (2) the importance of value chains, (3) the intricacies of scaling up nutrition interventions, (4) the lessons learned from institutional approaches, and (5) the experience of international aid donors. There is no blueprint for when and how to take an intervention to scale, but the examples and experiences described in this series of policy briefs offer important insights into how to address the key global issues of agricultural productivity, food insecurity, and rural poverty. Authors Johannes F. LinnLaurence ChandyRaj M. Desai Publication: International Food Policy Research Institute Image Source: Michael Buholzer / Reuters Full Article
elo Getting to Scale : How to Bring Development Solutions to Millions of Poor People By webfeeds.brookings.edu Published On :: Mon, 15 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0400 Brookings Institution Press 2013 240pp. Winner of Choice Magazine's Outstanding Academic Title of 2014! The global development community is teeming with different ideas and interventions to improve the lives of the world’s poorest people. Whether these succeed in having a transformative impact depends not just on their individual brilliance but on whether they can be brought to a scale where they reach millions of poor people. Getting to Scale explores what it takes to expand the reach of development solutions beyond an individual village or pilot program, but to poor people everywhere. Each of the essays in this book documents one or more contemporary case studies, which together provide a body of evidence on how scale can be pursued. It suggests that the challenge of scaling up can be divided into two: financing interventions at scale, and managing delivery to large numbers of beneficiaries. Neither governments, donors, charities, nor corporations are usually capable of overcoming these twin challenges alone, indicating that partnerships are key to success. Scaling up is mission critical if extreme poverty is to be vanquished in our lifetime. Getting to Scale provides an invaluable resource for development practitioners, analysts, and students on a topic that remains largely unexplored and poorly understood. ABOUT THE EDITORS Laurence Chandy Akio Hosono Akio Hosono is the director of the Research Institute of the Japanese International Cooperation Agency. Homi Kharas Johannes F. Linn Downloads Sample ChapterTable of Contents Ordering Information: {9ABF977A-E4A6-41C8-B030-0FD655E07DBF}, 978-0-8157-2419-3, $29.95 Add to Cart Full Article
elo Realizing the Potential of the Multilateral Development Banks By webfeeds.brookings.edu Published On :: Thu, 05 Sep 2013 14:10:00 -0400 Editor's Note: Johannes Linn discusses the potential of multilateral development banks in the latest G-20 Research Group briefing book on the St. Petersburg G-20 Summit. Read the full collection here. The origins of the multilateral development banks (MDBs) lie with the creation of the World Bank at Bretton Woods in 1944. Its initial purpose, as the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, was the reconstruction of wartorn countries after the Second World War. As Europe and Japan recovered in the 1950s, the World Bank turned to providing financial assistance to the developing world. Then came the foundation of the InterAmerican Development Bank (IADB) in 1959, of the African Development Bank (AfDB) in 1964 and of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in 1966, each to assist the development of countries in their respective regions. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) was set up in 1991, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, to assist with the transition of countries in the former Soviet sphere. The MDBs are thus rooted in two key aspects of the geopolitical reality of the postwar 20th century: the Cold War between capitalist ‘West’ and communist ‘East’, and the division of the world into the industrial ‘North’ and the developing ‘South’. The former aspect was mirrored in the MDBs for many years by the absence of countries from the Eastern Bloc. This was only remedied after the fall of the Bamboo and Iron curtains. The latter aspect remains deeply embedded even today in the mandate, financing pattern and governance structures of the MDBs. Changing global financial architecture From the 1950s to the 1990s, the international financial architecture consisted of only three pillars: the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the MDBs represented the multilateral official pillar; the aid agencies of the industrial countries represented bilateral official pillar; and the commercial banks and investors from industrial countries made up the private pillar. Today, the picture is dramatically different. Private commercial flows vastly exceed official flows, except during global financial crises. New channels of development assistance have multiplied, as foundations and religious and non-governmental organisations rival the official assistance flows in size. The multilateral assistance architecture, previously dominated by the MDBs, is now a maze of multilateral development agencies, with a slew of sub-regional development banks, some exceeding the traditional MDBs in size. For example, the European Investment Bank lends more than the World Bank, and the Caja Andina de Fomento (CAF, the Latin American Development Bank) more than the IADB. There are also a number of large ‘vertical funds’ for specific purposes, such as the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. There are specialized trust funds, attached to MDBs, but often with their own governance structures. End of the North-South divide Finally, the traditional North-South divide is breaking down, as emerging markets have started to close the development gap, as global poverty has dropped and as many developing countries have large domestic capacities. This means that the new power houses in the South need little financial and technical assistance and are now providing official financial and technical support to their less fortunate neighbors. China’s assistance to Africa outstrips that of the World Bank. The future for MDBs In this changed environment is there a future for MDBs? Three options might be considered: 1. Do away with the MDBs as a relic of the past. Some more radical market ideologues might argue that, if there ever was a justification for the MDBs, that time is now well past. In 2000, a US congressional commission recommended the less radical solution of shifting the World Bank’s loan business to the regional MDBs. Even if shutting down MDBs were the right option, it is highly unlikely to happen. No multilateral financial institution created after the Second World War has ever been closed. Indeed, recently the Nordic Development Fund was to be shut down, but its owners reversed their decision and it will carry on, albeit with a focus on climate change. 2. Carry on with business as usual. Currently, MDBs are on a track that, if continued, would mean a weakened mandate, loss of clients, hollowed-out financial strength and diluted technical capacity. Given their tight focus on the fight against poverty, the MDBs will work themselves out of a job as global poverty, according to traditional metrics, is on a dramatic downward trend. Many middle-income country borrowers are drifting away from the MDBs, since they find other sources of finance and technical advice more attractive. These include the sub-regional development banks, which are more nimble in disbursing their loans and whose governance is not dominated by the industrial countries. These countries, now facing major long-term budget constraints, will be unable to continue supporting the growth of the MDBs’ capital base. But they are also unwilling to let the emerging market economies provide relatively more funding and acquire a greater voice in these institutions. Finally, while the MDBs retain professional staff that represents a valuable global asset, their technical strength relative to other sources of advice – and by some measures, even their absolute strength – has been waning. If left unattended, this would mean that MDBs 10 years from now, while still limping along, are likely to have lost their ability to provide effective financial and technical services on a scale and with a quality that matter globally or regionally. 3. Give the MDBs a new mandate, new governance and new financing. If one starts from the proposition that a globalised 21st-century world needs capable global institutions that can provide long-term finance to meet critical physical and social infrastructure needs regionally and globally, and that can serve as critical knowledge hubs in an increasingly interconnected world, then it would be folly to let the currently still considerable institutional and financial strengths of the MDBs wither away. Globally and regionally, the world faces infrastructure deficits, epidemic threats, conflicts and natural disasters, financial crises, environmental degradation and the spectre of global climate change. It would seem only natural to call on the MDBs, which have retained their triple-A ratings and shown their ability to address these issues in the past, although on a scale that has been insufficient. Three steps would be taken under this option: • The mandate of the MDBs should be adapted to move beyond preoccupation with poverty eradication to focus explicitly on global and regional public goods as a way to help sustain global economic growth and human welfare. Moreover, the MDBs should be able to provide assistance to all their members, not only developing country members. • The governance of the MDBs should be changed to give the South a voice commensurate with the greater global role it now plays in economic and political terms. MDB leaders should be selected on merit without consideration of nationality. • The financing structure should be matched to give more space to capital contributions from the South and to significantly expand the MDBs’ capital resources in the face of the current severe capital constraints. In addition, MDB management should be guided by banks’ membership to streamline their operational practices in line with those widely used by sub-regional development banks, and they should be supported in preserving and, where possible, strengthening their professional capacity so that they can serve as international knowledge hubs. A new MDB agenda for the G20 The G20 has taken on a vast development agenda. This is fine, but it risks getting bogged down in the minutiae of development policy design and implementation that go far beyond what global leaders can and should deal with. What is missing is a serious preoccupation of the G20 with that issue on which it is uniquely well equipped to lead: reform of the global financial institutional architecture. What better place than to start with than the MDBs? The G20 should review the trends, strengths and weaknesses of MDBs in recent decades and endeavour to create new mandates, governance and financing structures that make them serve as effective pillars of the global institutional system in the 21st century. If done correctly, this would also mean no more need for new institutions, such as the BRICS development bank currently being created by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. It would be far better to fix the existing institutions than to create new ones that mostly add to the already overwhelming fragmentation of the global institutional system. Authors Johannes F. Linn Publication: Financing for Investment Image Source: © Stringer . / Reuters Full Article
elo The role of multilateral development banks in supporting the post-2015 development agenda By webfeeds.brookings.edu Published On :: Sat, 18 Apr 2015 10:00:00 -0400 Event Information April 18, 201510:00 AM - 12:00 PM EDTFalk AuditoriumBrookings Institution1775 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.Washington, DC 20036 The year 2015 will be a milestone year, with the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the post-2015 development agenda by world leaders in September; the Addis Ababa Accord on financing for development in July; and the conclusion of climate negotiations at COP21 in Paris in December. The draft Addis Ababa Accord, which focuses on the actions needed to attain the SDGs, highlights the key role envisaged for the multilateral development banks (MDBs) in the post-2015 agenda. Paragraph 65 of the draft accord notes: “We call on the international finance institutions to establish a process to examine the role, scale, and functioning of the multilateral and regional development finance institutions to make them more responsive to the sustainable development agenda.” Against this backdrop, on April 18, 2015, the Global Economy and Development program at Brookings held a private roundtable with the leaders of the MDBs and other key stakeholders to discuss the role of the MDBs in supporting the post-2015 development agenda. The meeting focused on four questions: What does the post-2015 development agenda and the ambitions of the Addis and Paris conferences imply for the MDBs? Given the ability of the MDBs to leverage shareholder resources, they can be efficient and effective mechanisms for scaling up development cooperation, particularly with respect to the agenda on investing in people and to the financing of sustainable infrastructure. New roles, instruments and partnerships might be needed. How can MDBs best take advantage of the political attention that is being paid to the various conferences in 2015? The World Bank and selected regional development banks have launched a series of initiatives to optimize their balance sheets, address other constraints and enhance their catalytic role in crowding in private finance. And new institutions and mechanisms are coming to the fore. But the responses are not coordinated to best take advantage of each MDB’s comparative advantage. What are the key impediments to scaling up the role and engagement of the MDBs? Views on constraints are likely to differ but discussions should cover policy dialogue, capacity building, capital, leverage, shareholder backing on volume, instruments on leverage and risk mitigation, safeguards, and governance. How should the MDBs respond to the proposal to establish a process to examine the role, scale and functioning of the multilateral and regional development finance institutions to make them more responsive to the sustainable development agenda? A proactive response and engagement on the part of the MDBs would facilitate a better understanding of the contribution that the MDBs can make and greater support among shareholders for a coherent and stepped-up role. Event Materials Participant ListMDB PostEvent Summary Full Article
elo It’s time for the multilateral development banks to fix their concessional resource replenishment process By webfeeds.brookings.edu Published On :: Wed, 09 Sep 2015 09:30:00 -0400 The replenishment process for concessional resources of the multilateral development banks is broken. We have come to this conclusion after a review of the experience with recent replenishments of multilateral development funds. We also base it on first-hand observation, since one of us was responsible for the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) replenishment consultations 20 years ago and recently served as the external chair for the last two replenishment consultations of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), which closely follow the common multilateral development bank (MDB) practice. As many of the banks and their donors are preparing for midterm reviews as a first step toward the next round of replenishment consultations, this is a good time to take stock and consider what needs to be done to fix the replenishment process. So what’s the problem? Most of all, the replenishment process does not serve its key intended function of setting overall operational strategy for the development funds and holding the institutions accountable for effectively implementing the strategy. Instead, the replenishment consultations have turned into a time-consuming and costly process in which donor representatives from their capitals get bogged down in the minutiae of institutional management that are better left to the boards of directors and the managements of the MDBs. There are other problems, including lack of adequate engagement of recipient countries in donors’ deliberations, the lack of full participation of the donors’ representatives on the boards of the institutions in the process, and inflexible governance structures that serve as a disincentive for non-traditional donors (from emerging countries and from private foundations) to contribute. But let’s focus on the consultation process. What does it look like? Typically, donor representatives from capitals assemble every three years (or four, in the case of the Asian Development Bank) for a year-long consultation round, consisting of four two-day meetings (including the meeting devoted to the midterm review of the ongoing replenishment and to setting the agenda for the next consultation process). For these meetings, MDB staff prepare, per consultation round, some 20 substantive documents that are intended to delve into operational and institutional performance in great detail. Each consultation round produces a long list of specific commitments (around 40 commitments is not uncommon), which management is required to implement and monitor, and report on in the midterm review. In effect, however, this review covers only half the replenishment cycle, which leads to the reporting, monitoring, and accountability being limited to the delivery of committed outputs (e.g., a specific sector strategy) with little attention paid to implementation, let alone outcomes. The process is eerily reminiscent of the much maligned “Christmas tree” approach of the World Bank’s structural adjustment loans in the 1980s and 1990s, with their detailed matrixes of conditionality; lack of strategic selectivity and country ownership; focus on inputs rather than outcomes; and lack of consideration of the borrowers’ capacity and costs of implementing the Bank-imposed measures. Ironically, the donors successfully pushed the MDBs to give up on such conditionality (without ownership of the recipient countries) in their loans, but they impose the same kind of conditionality (without full ownership of the recipient countries and institutions) on the MDBs themselves—replenishment after replenishment. Aside from lack of selectivity, strategic focus, and ownership of the commitments, the consultation process is also burdensome and costly in terms of the MDBs’ senior management and staff time as well as time spent by ministerial staff in donor capitals, with literally thousands of management and staff hours spent on producing and reviewing documentation. And the recent innovation of having donor representatives meet between consultation rounds as working groups dealing with long-term strategic issues, while welcome in principle, has imposed further costs on the MDBs and capitals in terms of preparing documentation and meetings. It doesn’t have to be that way. Twenty years ago the process was much simpler and less costly. Even today, recent MDB capital increases, which mobilized resources for the non-concessional windows of the MDBs, were achieved with much simpler processes, and the replenishment consultations for special purpose funds, such as the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria and for the GAVI Alliance, are more streamlined than those of the MDBs. So what’s to be done? We recommend the following measures to fix the replenishment consultation process: Focus on a few strategic issues and reduce the number of commitments with an explicit consideration of the costs and capacity requirements they imply. Shift the balance of monitoring and accountability from delivery of outputs to implementation and outcomes. Prepare no more than five documents for the consultation process: (i) a midterm review on the implementation of the previous replenishment and key issues for the future; (ii) a corporate strategy or strategy update; (iii) the substantive report on how the replenishment resources will contribute to achieve the strategy; (iv) a financial outlook and strategy document; and (v) the legal document of the replenishment resolution. Reduce the number of meetings for each replenishment round to no more than three and lengthen the replenishment period from three to four years or more. Use the newly established working group meetings between replenishment consultation rounds to focus on one or two long-term, strategic issues, including how to fix the replenishment process. The initiative for such changes lies with the donor representatives in the capitals, and from our interviews with donor representatives we understand that many of them broadly share our concerns. So this is a good time—indeed it is high time!—for them to act. Authors Johannes F. LinnAnil Sood Full Article
elo Getting millions to learn: What will it take to accelerate progress on meeting the Sustainable Development Goals? By webfeeds.brookings.edu Published On :: Mon, 18 Apr 2016 09:00:00 -0400 Event Information April 18-19, 2016Falk AuditoriumBrookings Institution1775 Massachusetts Avenue NWWashington, DC 20036 Register for the EventIn 2015, 193 countries adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a new global agenda that is more ambitious than the preceding Millennium Development Goals and aims to make progress on some of the most pressing issues of our time. Goal 4, "To ensure inclusive and quality education for all, with relevant and effective learning outcomes," challenges the international education community to meet universal access plus learning by 2030. We know that access to primary schooling has scaled up rapidly over previous decades, but what can be learned from places where transformational changes in learning have occurred? What can governments, civil society, and the private sector do to more actively scale up quality learning? On April 18-19, the Center for Universal Education (CUE) at Brookings launched "Millions Learning: Scaling Up Quality Education in Developing Countries," a comprehensive study that examines where learning has improved around the world and what factors have contributed to that process. This two-day event included two sessions. Monday, April 18 focused on the role of global actors in accelerating progress to meeting the SDGs. The second session on Tuesday, April 19 included a presentation of the Millions Learning report followed by panel discussions on the role of financing and technology in scaling education in developing countries. Join the conversation on Twitter #MillionsLearning Video Getting millions to learn: What will it take to accelerate progress on meeting the Sustainable Development Goals?Scaling quality education: The launch of the Millions Learning reportDo funders help or hinder scaling in education?What role can technology play in scaling education? Audio Getting millions to learn: What will it take to accelerate progress on meeting the Sustainable Development Goals? Transcript Uncorrected Transcript - Day 1 (.pdf)Uncorrected Transcript - Day 2 (.pdf) Event Materials 20160418_millions_learning_transcript20160419_millions_learning_transcript Full Article
elo How to meet SDG and climate goals: Eight lessons for scaling up development programs By webfeeds.brookings.edu Published On :: Tue, 10 May 2016 09:30:00 -0400 To achieve the desired outcomes of the Sustainable Development Goals as well as the global targets from the Paris COP21 Climate Summit by 2030, governments will have to find ways to meet the top-down objectives with bottom-up approaches. A systematic focus on scaling up successful development interventions could serve to bridge this gap, or what’s been called the “missing middle.” However, the question remains how to actually address the challenge of scaling up. When Arna Hartmann, adjunct professor of international development, and I first looked at the scaling up agenda in development work in the mid-2000s, we concluded that development agencies were insufficiently focused on supporting the scaling up of successful development interventions. The pervasive focus on one-off projects all too often resulted in what I’ve come to refer to as “pilots to nowhere.” As a first step to fix this, we recommended that each aid organization carry out a review to be sure to focus effectively on scaling up. The institutional dimension is critical, given their role in developing and implementing scaling up pathways. Of course, individuals serve as champions, designers, and implementers, but experience illustrates that if individuals lack a strong link to a supportive institution, scaling up is most likely to be short-lived and unsustainable. “Institutions” include many different types of organizations, such as government ministries and departments, private firms and social enterprises, civil society organizations, and both public and private external donors and financiers. The Brookings book “Getting to Scale: How to Bring Development Solutions to Millions of Poor People” explores the opportunities and challenges that such organizations face, on their own or, better yet, partnering with each other, in scaling up the development impact of their successful interventions. Eight lessons in scaling up Over the past decade I have worked with 10 foreign aid institutions—multilateral and bilateral agencies, as well as big global non-governmental organizations—helping them to focus systematically on scaling up operational work and developing approaches to do so. There are common lessons that apply across the board to these agencies, with one salutary example being the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) which has tackled the scaling up agenda systematically and persistently. Following are eight takeaway lessons I gleaned from my work with IFAD: Look into the “black box” of institutions. It is not enough to decide that an institution should focus on and support scaling up of successful development interventions. You actually need to look at how institutions function in terms of their mission statement and corporate strategy, their policies and processes, their operational instruments, their budgets, management and staff incentives, and their monitoring and evaluation practices. Check out the Brookings working paper that summarizes the results of a scaling up review of the IFAD. Scaling needs to be pursued institution-wide. Tasking one unit in an organization with innovation and scaling up, or creating special outside entities (like the Global Innovation Fund set up jointly by a number of donor agencies) is a good first step. But ultimately, a comprehensive approach must be mainstreamed so that all operational activities are geared toward scaling up. Scaling up must be championed from the top. The governing boards and leadership of the institutions need to commit to scaling up and persistently stay on message, since, like any fundamental institutional change, effectively scaling up takes time, perhaps a decade or more as with IFAD. The scaling up process must be grown within the institution. External analysis and advice from consultants can play an important role in institutional reviews. But for lasting institutional change, the leadership must come from within and involve broad participation from managers and staff in developing operational policies and processes that are tailored to an institution’s specific culture, tasks, and organizational structure. A well-articulated operational approach for scaling up needs to be put in place. For more on this, take a look at a recent paper by Larry Cooley and I that reviews two helpful operational approaches, which are also covered in Cooley’s blog. For the education sector, the Center for Universal Education at Brookings just published its report “Millions Learning,” which provides a useful scaling up approach specifically tailored to the education sector. Operational staffs need to receive practical guidance and training. It is not enough to tell staff that they have to focus on scaling up and then give them a general framework. They also need practical guidance and training, ideally tailored to the specific business lines they are engaged in. IFAD, for example, developed overall operational guidelines for scaling up, as well as guidance notes for specific area of engagement, including livestock development, agricultural value chains, land tenure security, etc. This guidance and training ideally should also be extended to consultants working with the agency on project preparation, implementation, and evaluation, as well as to the agency’s local counterpart organizations. New approaches to monitoring and evaluation (M&E) have to be crafted. Typically the M&E for development projects is backward looking and focused on accountability, narrow issues of implementation, and short-term results. Scaling up requires continuous learning, structured experimentation, and innovation based on evidence, including whether the enabling conditions for scaling up are being established. And it is important to monitor and evaluate the institutional mainstreaming process of scaling up to ensure that it is effectively pursued. I’d recommend looking at how the German Agency for International Development (GIZ) carried out a corporate-wide evaluation of its scaling up experience. Scaling up helps aid organizations mobilize financial resources. Scaling up leverages limited institutional resources in two ways: First, an organization can multiply the impact of its own financial capacity by linking up with public and private agencies and building multi-stakeholder coalitions in support of scaling up. Second, when an organization demonstrates that it is pursuing not only one-off results but also scaled up impact, funders or shareholders of the organization tend to be more motivated to support the organization. This certainly was one of the drivers of IFAD’s successful financial replenishment consultation rounds over the last decade. By adopting these lessons, development organizations can actually begin to scale up to the level necessary to bridge the missing middle. The key will be to assure that a focus on scaling up is not the exception but instead becomes ingrained in the institutional DNA. Simply put, in designing and implementing development programs and projects, the question needs to be answered, “What’s next, if this intervention works?” Authors Johannes F. Linn Full Article
elo Are the Millennials Driving Downtown Corporate Relocations? By webfeeds.brookings.edu Published On :: In spite of the U.S. Census data for the past decade showing continued job de-centralization, there is now much anecdotal evidence for the just the opposite. The Chicago Crain’s Business Journal reports that companies such as Allstate, Motorola, AT&T, GE Capital, and even Sears are re-considering their fringe suburban locations, generally in stand alone campuses,… Full Article Uncategorized
elo Catalytic development: (Re)creating walkable urban places By webfeeds.brookings.edu Published On :: Mon, 07 May 2018 13:12:39 +0000 Since the mid-1990s, demographic and economic shifts have fundamentally changed markets and locations for real estate development. These changes are largely powered by growth of the knowledge economy, which, since the turn of the 21st century, has begun moving out of suburban office parks and into more walkable mixed-use places in an effort to attract… Full Article
elo Catalytic development: (Re)making walkable urban places By webfeeds.brookings.edu Published On :: Fri, 18 May 2018 21:08:24 +0000 Over the past several decades, demographic shifts and the rise of the knowledge economy have led to increasing demand for more walkable, mixed-use urban places. Catalytic development is a new model of investment that takes a large scale, long-term approach to recreating such communities. The objectives of this model are exemplified in Amazon’s RFP for… Full Article
elo Rethinking Cuba: New opportunities for development By webfeeds.brookings.edu Published On :: Tue, 02 Jun 2015 09:00:00 -0400 Event Information June 2, 20159:00 AM - 2:30 PM EDTSaul/Zilkha RoomsBrookings Institution1775 Massachusetts Avenue NWWashington, DC 20036 Register for the EventPara Español, hacer clic aquíOn December 17, 2014, President Barack Obama and President Raúl Castro announced that the United States and Cuba would seek to reestablish diplomatic relations. Since then, the two countries have engaged in bilateral negotiations in Havana and Washington, the United States has made several unilateral policy changes to facilitate greater trade and travel between the two countries, and bipartisan legislation has been introduced in the U.S. Congress to lift the travel ban. Meanwhile, conversations are ongoing about ending the 50-plus-year embargo and Cuba has continued the process of updating its economic system, including establishing new rules for foreign investment and the emerging private sector. In light of the significant shifts underway in the U.S.-Cuba relationship, new questions arise about Cuba’s development model, and its economic relations with the region and the world. On Tuesday, June 2, the Latin America Initiative at Brookings hosted a series of panel discussions with various experts including economists, lawyers, academics, and practitioners to examine opportunities and challenges facing Cuba in this new context. Panels examined macroeconomic changes underway in Cuba, how to finance Cuba’s growth, the emerging private sector, and themes related to much-needed foreign investment. Join the conversation on Twitter using #CubaGrowth Video Panel 1: Trends in the Cuban economy in light of the new U.S.-Cuba contextPanel 2: Financing Cuba’s growth, development, and tradePanel 3: Next steps for Cuba’s emerging private Sector–Cuentapropistas and cooperativesPanel 4: A New stage in foreign direct investment Audio Rethinking Cuba: New opportunities for development - Part 1 (English)Rethinking Cuba: New opportunities for development - Part 2 (English)Rethinking Cuba: New opportunities for development - Part 1 (español)Rethinking Cuba: New opportunities for development - Part 2 (español) Transcript Uncorrected Transcript (.pdf) Event Materials 20150602_rethinking_cuba_transcript Full Article
elo Dr. Michel Gelobter on Nukes, Republicans, Tech, and the Future of Energy (Podcast) By www.treehugger.com Published On :: Thu, 01 Sep 2011 09:45:01 -0400 After seven years in government, seven years in non-profits, and seven years in business, Michel Gelobter jokes that he's headed for the clergy next. And why not? He's led Redefining Progress, been a professor at Rutgers, and run environmental quality Full Article TreeHugger Radio
elo Rotate this: Spiral spinning tower will turn real estate developers' cranks By www.treehugger.com Published On :: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 14:17:17 -0400 The sharing economy comes to architecture as the rich and the very rich share views and height. Full Article Design
elo Scientists Develop Potent Acids to Take Down Destructive Fluorocarbons By www.treehugger.com Published On :: Fri, 29 Aug 2008 22:45:00 -0400 While their brethren, the dreaded chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), may be on the wane, fluorocarbons -- a class of equally dangerous industrial gases -- are still wreaking havoc. As the name implies, the main distinguishing characteristic between CFCs and Full Article Technology
elo First ever United Nations Environment Assembly to shape Sustainable Development Goals By www.treehugger.com Published On :: Fri, 27 Jun 2014 14:30:01 -0400 Delegates from United Nations member states meet to discuss a global environmental agenda. Full Article Business
elo Sustainable Development, Smart Growth and Agenda 21 Now Illegal in Tennessee By www.treehugger.com Published On :: Mon, 19 Mar 2012 11:57:00 -0400 Because everyone knows that bike paths are just the thin edge of the wedge. Next, they come for your cars. Full Article Design
elo Photographer Discovers Mysterious "Bearded" Antelope By www.treehugger.com Published On :: Fri, 20 Aug 2010 20:55:36 -0400 Photo by Paolo Torchio Veteran wildlife photographer Paolo Torchio made a bizarre discovery while visiting Kenya's Masai Mara National Reserve: a mysterious "bearded" antelope. While one expert suggests the animal might only be suffering from Full Article Science
elo Elon Musk TED Talk: Tesla, SolarCity, SpaceX, etc By www.treehugger.com Published On :: Thu, 21 Mar 2013 13:05:28 -0400 If there's one thing that can't be said of Elon Musk, it's that he doesn't try his best. Few entrepreneurs succeed in just one of the many difficult fields that he's tackled, but it's almost unprecedented to see a single person attack on so many fronts. Full Article Transportation
elo Electronic toys impede language development in children By www.treehugger.com Published On :: Thu, 22 Jun 2017 14:34:00 -0400 Often marketed as educational, electronic toys have the opposite effect, resulting in parents and children speaking less to each other. Full Article Living
elo Ajiro Bamboo Velobike: A "Grown Vehicle" That's Farmed, Not Factory-Made By www.treehugger.com Published On :: Tue, 02 Aug 2011 10:02:23 -0400 Bamboo may seem like a questionable material for making bikes, but we've seen our share of great bamboo bikes -- and hey, there's even DIY bamboo bike-building classes out there. Taking advantage Full Article Transportation
elo New US solar workforce development program will help facilitate the training of more skilled workers By www.treehugger.com Published On :: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 19:05:33 -0400 The Solar Training Network will work to build a diverse, qualified solar workforce to meet the needs of the solar revolution. Full Article Energy
elo Me to We Tees Promote International Development By www.treehugger.com Published On :: Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:13:00 -0400 There are lots of eco-tees out there today, we'll admit it. The tees designed by Me to We clothing have improved on the design of most eco-tees in that they fit better because they are cut longer and larger than your standard Full Article Living
elo Tapping the Energy Below the Earth's Surface By www.treehugger.com Published On :: Tue, 31 Aug 2010 12:18:27 -0400 The heat in the upper six miles of the earth's crust contains 50,000 times as much energy as found in all the world's oil and gas reserves combined. Despite this abundance, only 10,700 megawatts of geothermal electricity Full Article Technology
elo Etsy's Handmade Halloween Costume Contest: Pass the Envelope, Please By www.treehugger.com Published On :: Wed, 31 Oct 2007 14:02:27 -0400 We laughed, we cried, but more important, we picked the recycling-loving winners of Etsy's Handmade Halloween Costume Contest. Full Article Living
elo Green Co-Housing Community Development In Nubanusit By www.treehugger.com Published On :: Thu, 19 Apr 2007 08:29:17 -0400 New Hampshire USA's first green co-housing community, Nubanusit Neighborhood and Farm, features renewable energy ready and energy efficiently designed residences. The 29 total units include 7 single-family homes, 7 duplex units, and 2 quad units on a Full Article Design
elo Rap News video presents our energy crises, global warming denial, Elon Musk on Mars, and our #1 energy solution By www.treehugger.com Published On :: Thu, 13 Mar 2014 13:55:00 -0400 This rapper nails it, imho. Full Article Energy
elo Is Elon Musk going to reinvent the air conditioner? By www.treehugger.com Published On :: Mon, 10 Sep 2018 12:16:45 -0400 What is that man smoking? Full Article Design
elo Hong Kong scientist develops tool to measure kids' connectedness to nature By www.treehugger.com Published On :: Mon, 14 Jan 2019 10:31:00 -0500 It reveals what we already know but needs repeating – that more time in nature equals greater happiness in kids. Full Article Living
elo Co-living development built on a potato field in the Netherlands By www.treehugger.com Published On :: Wed, 27 Mar 2019 14:14:55 -0400 Here's how people work together to build their own homes cooperatively. Full Article Design
elo Researchers at Texas A&M develop a bossy and nosy standing desk By www.treehugger.com Published On :: Thu, 09 Feb 2017 10:57:48 -0500 It tells you when to get up and to sit down, and checks up on you too. Full Article Design
elo Stadium in Qatar is demountable and relocatable and even has shipping containers By www.treehugger.com Published On :: Tue, 28 Nov 2017 12:00:48 -0500 It makes a lot of sense in a country with no workers and five other permanent stadia. Full Article Design
elo Industrial spaces and condos are neighbors in this Vancouver development with shipping container look By www.treehugger.com Published On :: Mon, 26 Aug 2019 13:46:06 -0400 Another look at a controversial housing project. Full Article Design
elo MIT has developed a new energy harvesting technology based on small bending movements By www.treehugger.com Published On :: Wed, 06 Jan 2016 10:27:17 -0500 Walking and other gentle movements could power the next generation of devices. Full Article Technology
elo Crazy-looking eco development powers 10% of the island of Tenerife By www.treehugger.com Published On :: Thu, 26 Apr 2018 06:00:00 -0400 It would be hard to find a cooler looking vacation home than one of these cabins... Full Article Energy
elo Is Elon Musk's SolarCity circling the drain? By www.treehugger.com Published On :: Thu, 21 Mar 2019 08:16:50 -0400 He says it is all part of the grand plan and we shouldn't worry. Full Article Technology
elo Florida development is a trifecta of solar power, size and efficiency By www.treehugger.com Published On :: Mon, 12 Nov 2018 10:00:13 -0500 Finally, Net Zero done right. Full Article Design
elo The Future We Want: The year in Elon Musk By www.treehugger.com Published On :: Mon, 18 Dec 2017 15:43:25 -0500 But what about the future we need? Full Article Design
elo The envelope, please: BuildingGreen's top 10 green picks for 2014 By www.treehugger.com Published On :: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 13:51:00 -0500 It's the Oscars of green building products chosen by the experts, in the runup to Greenbuild. Full Article Design
elo The envelope, please: BuildingGreen's top 10 green picks for 2016 By www.treehugger.com Published On :: Wed, 18 Nov 2015 15:00:00 -0500 It's a ritual; they pick the ten top products and I complain that they are not sexy. This year is different. Full Article Design
elo Canada's first tiny house festival debuts as part of planned tiny housing development By www.treehugger.com Published On :: Mon, 27 Jul 2015 15:29:59 -0400 We visited Canada's first tiny house festival to find out more about this newly declared eco-residential development in Quebec for homes under 1,000 square feet in size. Full Article Design
elo U.S. Doctors Say Biofuels Could Kill 192,000+ Per Year in Developing Countries By www.treehugger.com Published On :: Tue, 05 Apr 2011 14:22:04 -0400 Photo: Stephanie Says, Flickr, CC Turning Food into Fuel is Not the Solution The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) has released a warning that U.S. and European policy to increase the production of biofuels could lead to almost Full Article Transportation
elo Nature Outsmarts Monsanto: Pests Develop Resistance to GM Corn By www.treehugger.com Published On :: Thu, 13 Sep 2012 08:32:49 -0400 You just can't fool Mother Nature. Full Article Living
elo We Are Like "Watermelons: Green On The Outside And Red Or Socialist On The Inside." By www.treehugger.com Published On :: Thu, 25 Feb 2010 17:17:49 -0500 Name calling is so much fun. Maryland State Senator Richard Colburn, R-Cambridge, thought he was having some at our expense when he characterized Full Article Business
elo Farms Use 60 Times More Land Than Cities: It's Time to Develop Terraculture By www.treehugger.com Published On :: Thu, 12 Apr 2012 06:35:35 -0400 Agriculture has become the single largest driver of climate change. It's time to start farming for the whole planet. Full Article Science
elo Hans Rosling debunks myths of child birth and the "developing world" By www.treehugger.com Published On :: Wed, 27 Feb 2013 11:35:12 -0500 The brilliant Hans Rosling has a data visualization video that helps debunk the myths of the birth and child mortality rates of the so-called developed and developing countries. Full Article Business