RE: Evaluating Scaling Efforts: Measuring What Matters

Thanks for suggesting this very important topic! In Uruguay we carried on a very successful GEF-FAO project on climate smart livestock production. 

 

And now the country wants to scale it. And I ask myself how this scaling effort will be evaluated? 

 

The first point is to understand that the project already finalized was a "pilot project" to validate the assumptions. And those assumptions were validated, but under a somewhat "controlled environment":

 (i) the farmers involved where less heterogeneous than the total universe of national farmers,

 (ii) hence it was possible to use a single methodology to work with them, 

(iii) the stimuli of the farmers to participate in the project were also less heterogeneous than the total possible stimuli to consider when considering all the kind of farmers in the country, and 

(iv) the biological environments considered in the "pilot project" were a representative sample but not all the biological environments at national level. 

 

So, when thinking at scaling up the intervention, several challenges come to the desk of the project team!

 

Sorry, I am not contributing with solutions, but only with challenges!

 

I have some ideas but I would like to hear more experienced voices!

 

Looking forward to what our colleagues might comment.

 

Best regards,

Vicente Plata