Scaling-up in the Country Program Strategies of International Aid Agencies

Scaling up the impact of interventions for maximum sustained development results should be a primary objective of international aid organizations. This article reports on a review of the African Development Bank’s (AfDB) country strategy papers (CSPs) from a scaling-up perspective. It concludes, based on a sample of strategy and supporting documents, that the AfDB’s CSPs do not focus systematically on scaling up the impact of the projects and programs that this multilateral development bank supports. This is not surprising, since the AfDB’s corporate strategy, policies, and processes do not explicitly focus on scaling up. However, the review also concludes that key elements of a scaling-up approach are found in the AfDB’s CSPs. If they were systematically applied across the board, AfDB could readily turn its CSPs into effective scaling-up strategies.