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Principles – Scaling up: a key objective of SUSTAINET
The main objective of the SUSTAINET project for the immediate future is the active advancement of sustainable land use.
It will begin by scaling up techniques and experience in the pilot countries of India, Kenya, Tanzania, Peru and
Bolivia, and later pursue the same approach on an intercontinental basis.
SUSTAINET's cooperation partners recognise that sustainable food production based on site-appropriate land use is a
viable option. Approaches and strategies for good agricultural practice are available locally, but their wider
dissemination can be limited by unfavourable political, societal and economic framework conditions.
One of the challenges for SUSTAINET and its partners in cooperation is to eliminate these obstacles and to create
favourable conditions. An important activity of SUSTAINET is developing networks between institutions in the pilot
regions and in Germany. These enable knowledge and experience to be relayed to the greatest possible number of
smallholdings. An analysis matrix has also been developed to evaluate the
scaling up potential of good practices.
Different categories of scaling up
Distinctions are made in the literature between different types of scaling up. The four most important (according
to Uvin and Miller 1999) are:
- Quantitative scaling up, which means growth in the classic sense. A project or an organisation expands,
e.g. by increasing its number of members, including a larger number of people in its activities, or extending its
activities to other regions.
- If a programme or an organisation grows by adding new activities which complement its previous work, then this is called
functional scaling up. For instance, a project focusing purely on agricultural production techniques may be
extended to include activities on the processing of agricultural products, on marketing, on health and basic
education, or on banking.
- Quantitative and functional scaling up can develop into political scaling up if the activities carried out become
a means of building or exercising deliberate political influence. Organisations can thereby play a part in influencing
political framework conditions and attitudes, decisions or legislation.
- Organisational scaling up refers to the development of an organisation by adapting to internal and external
conditions. Organisations may strengthen themselves for instance by raising the effectiveness of their activities,
specialising in particular areas of work, working on diversification of donors or income streams, or making internal
management changes.
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