Scaling innovation for international development

Overcoming barriers to scale

Scaling innovation is challenging in any sector, often left till the end of the process whereupon it is revealed that the challenges of scale-up have not been duly planned for. When it comes to social and development issues, these challenges cannot be underestimated. To achieve genuine social impact at scale, we need to go far beyond the simple idea of rapidly replicating one universal solution for different users and settings, in the typical Silicon Valley model of scalability.

Rather, scaling innovation for development requires us to tackle the messy systems challenges around adoption, interoperability, policy and regulatory frameworks in different contexts. It may involve integrating solutions within existing services, whether in the public, private or voluntary sector, and fostering the social-ecological system that needs to be in place in order to implement these new solutions. This process often takes time and patience, involving multiple stakeholders with different priorities and resources. The end-user or beneficiary of an innovation is usually not the one who pays for or delivers a given solution, creating a complex web of relationships and power dynamics that must be navigated to allow the adoption of disruptive new ideas. It is the role of innovators to design solutions that can function within this ecosystem, but it is also the role of innovation funders and enablers to build the partnerships and collaborations needed to deliver scale.

This is exactly the approach that we have taken in designing the Ghana Science and Tech Explorer Prize. We know that to create a contextually appropriate version of the Longitude Explorer Prize in Ghana, we need to work with a range of partners and allow sufficient time frames to engage with policymakers, industry and other key stakeholders in the process. By dedicating this time to breaking down silos, sharing knowledge and building a collaborative environment for co-design between systems actors, we are setting the stage for a programme that can successfully scale within the existing context and create real benefits for thousands of young people.

Scaling the right solutions

We are all familiar with initiatives in the development sector that have been abandoned, from the infamous PlayPumps to Microsoft’s Digital Villages, wasting precious resources and losing trust in the process. So how do we ensure that we are scaling the right ideas in the first place – the ones that offer genuine impact and longevity?

One of the main pitfalls we see in innovation is starting with a solution looking for a problem, rather than starting by really understanding the problem and its context.  This is especially relevant when it comes to tackling the type of wicked problems we encounter in international development, where there is rarely one ‘silver bullet’ solution. A well designed challenge prize, based on thorough and extensive user-centred research, is one way of presenting a clear and defined challenge for innovators to work towards, whilst encouraging different types of solution.

Opening up a challenge to diverse solutions is an effective way of de-risking innovation for funders and governments, and delivering a range of interventions that actually work – especially important in the context of international development where the ‘move fast and break things’ mindset is not appropriate. Our current work with Global Affairs Canada on a prize to tackle plastic waste in Sub-Saharan Africa is an example of this approach, using the prize as an opportunity to seed a large number of ideas and different approaches that can further incentivise innovators to work on the challenge. In this way, a prize can effectively increase the chances of one or more of those innovations overcoming the ‘valleys of death’ to find a path to scale.

To ensure that these innovations will tackle the problems in question, they also need to be driven by and co-designed with people on the ground. Rather than viewing people affected by development challenges as beneficiaries, we need to acknowledge and support their potential as innovators who often have some of the best ideas for solutions. The Data Driven Farming Prize focused on building global-local partnerships, drawing on local expertise and lived experience to frame the problem, co-design the prize and develop solutions for smallholder farmers in Nepal. Likewise, the Fall Armyworm Tech Prize championed local innovators to ensure credibility and sustainability of solutions to identify, treat and track the incidence of fall armyworm for smallholder farmers in Africa.
ngeworks.org”>contact director Constance Agyeman.

A staged pathway to scale

The right structure of support is also vital to help innovation to scale. The FCDO Global Innovation Fund is structured with three stages of funding to pilot, test and scale solutions, giving innovators the opportunity to thoroughly test and evidence their solutions to ensure long-term impact. Likewise, the Million Cool Roofs Challenge adopted a step-wise approach of supporting pilot stage projects at the initial stages, before awarding the main $2 million prize for new business models that can rapidly scale up the deployment of solar-reflective roof technologies in the Global South. This prize is carefully designed to support a scaling approach that responds to local needs and contexts across different countries and use cases, recognising the fact that the cost and efficiency benefits of scaling innovations can be achieved at the same time as developing transferable solutions that can be adapted to local needs.

With a growing number of global challenges requiring our attention, Challenge Works is always looking for opportunities to use the challenge prize method to help scale innovative and effective solutions. This work requires systems actors from across the development, policy and innovation sector to collaborate and facilitate the pathways to adoption, enabling innovators to address our urgent crises and deliver benefits for more people across the world.

To find out more about our work in international development and opportunities to collaborate, contact director Constance Agyeman