Replication and Scaling Up: Where to from Here? - Combating Desertification in Asia, Africa and the Middle East - page 429

frameworks. Start-up small, micro and medium sized enterprises that have strong
local involvement may recognize that they would benefit from these processes, but
it could be well beyond their capacity to initiate and sustain these processes in order
to secure their own growth and impact.

1.3 Replication

Replication is not straightforward. Improving the communication of good ideas,
even providing seed funding to attract potential entrepreneurs to replicate an idea,
will not be enough. Success factors for an initiative will be grounded in the local
context, for example:

• the experience and commitment of the individuals involved;

• receptivity among the local beneficiaries;

• a favorable enabling environment (see below).

An exact replication is therefore never possible; but without similar favorable
circumstances in place, successful replication cannot be easily assumed. Leadership
and ownership of the initiative in other jurisdictions may be problematic, especially
if the replication is underwritten by significant donor dollars rather than being
fostered from the grass-roots. There may not be sufficient resilience in the new
community in the way of technical support, access to micro credit and other
factors that could help to mitigate set-backs in implementation. Legal and regulatory
frameworks may well be different. All factors contributing to the success of the
original demonstration/pilot must be examined in order to assess the feasibility of
replication. Even with this effort, the risk of failure may be high.
Efforts to replicate and scale-up often are inadequate because (a) key facets
and specific tasks related to each phase of not pursued and (b) appropriate change
mechanisms are not established.
Implementing and scaling-up a comprehensive prototype almost always requires
phased - in change and the addition of temporary infrastructure mechanisms to
facilitate change. One way to conceive a mechanism for change is in terms of
well-trained change agents or organization facilitators. Such staff are needed to
disseminate a prototype, negotiate decisions about replication, and dispense the ex-
pertise to facilitate implementation and eventual scale-up changes may encompass
introducing one or more interventions, developing a demonstration at a specific site,
or replicating a prototype on a large-scale. The push for scale-up may have the
unintended consequence of endangering a resource or an ecosystem.

1.4 Enabling Environment

Practitioners and independent analysts now advocate that an enabling environment
must be in place to support scale-up and replication. What constitutes an “enabling