Strengthening regional scaling ecosystems: insights on scaling champions across East and Southern Africa
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International Water Management Institute
CGIAR Scaling for Impact Program
CGIAR Scaling for Impact Program
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This synthesis note, documents practical insights on how scaling champions support the uptake and sustained use of food, land and water systems innovations across East and Southern Africa. In this synthesis, scaling champions are individuals or institutions that bridge the gap between innovation and everyday use by convening actors, building trust, mobilizing partnerships, and navigating policy and institutional systems over time. Drawing on experiences from Zimbabwe, Malawi, Uganda, and Kenya, the note brings together lessons emerging from country practice and continued regional South-South learning engagements. Across contexts, progress depended less on new technologies and more on whether policies were aligned, political buy in secured, institutions coordinated, financing sustained, and extension and training systems able to support uptake. Champions emerged across extension services, national research systems, universities, community networks, private sector platforms, and government agencies. Their ability to maintain engagement, influence, and coordinate actors shaped whether innovations moved beyond pilot initiatives. The note highlights that the central challenge lies not in generating innovation, but in strengthening institutional capacity to scale it responsibly. It emphasizes embedding scaling science within universities and TVET institutions, strengthening organizational uptake of scaling frameworks, and investing in structured peer learning networks to build durable and inclusive regional scaling ecosystems.
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food systems, land, water systems, scaling up, innovation scaling, social inclusion, gender, youth, institutions