Scaling up the benefits of agroforestry research: lessons learned and research challenges

Research and development institutions are becoming increasingly committed to scaling upthe adoption and impact of technical, institutional, and policy innovations that improvehousehold livelihoods. Scaling up is a complex subject; Uvin and Miller (1999) developeda taxonomy and arrived at 17 different kinds of scaling up, focusing on structure (when aprogramme expands its size), strategy (degree of political involvement), and resource base(organisational strength). The International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR 2000)gives a useful and succinct functional definition of scaling up: efforts to ‘bring more qualitybenefits to more people over a wider geographical area more quickly, more equitably, an dmore lastingly’. Different users of the term consider different issues. Proponents of th etechnology-transfer paradigm often imply that the main issue in scaling up is to replicatethe use of improved practices —for example, more farmers using mineral fertiliser —an dthey focus on such issues as delivery of inputs and demonstration of benefits (Qui nones andGebre 1996). Others, such as Krishna et al. (1998), consider scaling up in much broaderterms, that is, as a process of adaptation, innovation, feedback, and expanded humancapability. In line with the latter approach, Cooper and Denning (2000) identified te nessential and generic elements of a successful scaling-up strategy, as noted in Denning(2001). Our paper summarises the main lessons learned from the case studies that appearin this issue and presents them by element.

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