Scaling Up Development Impact

Today, nearly one billion people lack electricity, over three billion lack clean water, and 750 million lack basic literacy skills. Many of these challenges could be solved with existing solutions, and technology now enables us to reach the last mile like never before. Yet, few solutions attain the necessary scale to match the size of these challenges.

Scaling Up Development Impact recognizes that scaling up is a process of transformation. It emphasizes that scaling up impact requires putting the people closest to the problem at the center, understanding that they have the utmost knowledge of their problems and thus are invaluable in co-creating long-lasting, scalable solutions. 

Crucially, it underscores the importance of iteration and adaptation in any scaling process. The book offers a truly comprehensive understanding of scaling up in its various dimensions – delving into scaling through for-profit enterprises, governments, and social enterprises, including understanding the crucial role of funders. Throughout, the book bridges a variety of disciplines relevant to scaling up that are rarely presented together, including systems thinking, complexity theory, psychology, economics, design thinking, and adaptive management.

Speaker: 
Isabel Guerrero, Co-Founder & Executive Director, Scaling Up, Livelihoods
Isabel Guerrero is driven to change the world in which she lives. Throughout her career, she’s helped those with the least break out of the cycle of poverty while celebrating the intrinsic beauty and dignity in each person. With this goal in mind, Isabel and Zachary Green co-founded IMAGO Global Grassroots, an organization focused on giving people living in poverty the tools to build their own destiny. Isabel worked for 30 years at the World Bank, including five years as Vice-President for the South Asia region, managing a US$39 billion portfolio. While presenting a different set of challenges, Isabel’s work with IMAGO offers tremendous potential to change the world through tackling some of the most intractable development problems we face today. In addition to her work with IMAGO, Isabel is on the board of the Presencing Institute at MIT and a Council Member of the United Nations University. She is an economist from London School of Economics and a psychoanalyst trained at the Washington Psychoanalytic Society. Isabel teaches “Scaling Up for Development Impact” at Harvard and is a Senior Lecturer in leadership at MIT.

Panelists:
Abe Grindle, Director, Programs at Co-Impact
Abe Grindle is a systems change strategist and advisor focused on how to create enduring improvements in systems that result in better economic, educational, and/or health outcomes and equity at scale for millions of people. Currently, Abe is a Director of Programs at Co-Impact, a large-scale collaborative philanthropic fund that focuses on such work. At Co-Impact, his work includes sourcing, vetting, and structuring large-scale, long-term grants for systems change in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and advising and coaching for social change leaders pursuing such goals.

Eduardo Gustale, Monitoring, Experimentation, and Learning Specialist at the UNDP Accelerator Lab Network
Eduardo Gustale serves as a Monitoring, Experimentation, and Learning Specialist at the UNDP Accelerator Lab Network, the world's largest and fastest-learning network tackling complex sustainable development challenges. The Accelerator Labs are mobilizing collective intelligence, learning from grassroots knowledge, and driving continuous R&D in 114 countries to create actionable insights and reimagine sustainable development for the 21st century. As a practitioner at the intersection of innovation and development, Eduardo led Poverty Stoplight, a poverty metric and methodology developed by Fundación Paraguaya, which has now been scaled to over 50 countries.

The discussion will be moderated by Prof. José Antonio Ocampo, Co-Director of EPD Concentration

This event will be hosted in person and on Zoom. 
Zoom link: https://columbiauniversity.zoom.us/j/98729481728?pwd=NW5iWHpCQjVwdjAyR1ZXejJmeTJUZz09

Lunch will be available for those joining in person. 

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Co-hosted with: MPA in Development Practice

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