This document outlines the key steps and considerations for scaling an agricultural innovation. It discusses defining the core innovation and complementary innovations, understanding the innovation system including relevant landscapes and stakeholders, identifying intended scaling outcomes depending on context, and understanding bottlenecks. The meeting presentation provides an overview of scaling a project to improve aquaculture skills training in Zambia through increasing the impact of successfully tested innovations to benefit more smallholder farmers on a sustainable basis. Partners involved include WorldFish, Musika, BluePlanet, and the Zambian government.

1. Scaling the Aquaculture Technical,
Vocational, and Entrepreneurship Training
for Improved Private Sector and Smallholder
Skills Project
Project planning and dissemination meeting 2020
29 October 2020, Zoom meeting, Zambia
Presenter: Netsayi Noris Mudege (Senior Scientist)

2. What is scaling?
Scaling up: deliberate efforts to increase the impact of successfully
tested [agriculture] innovations so as to benefit more people and to foster
policy and programme development on a lasting basis (Adapted from
who 2016).
Scaling up is about ensuring the quality of a development impact,
reaching out to those ‘left behind’ and ensuring the sustainability and
adaptability of results.

3. Step 1
• Clearly define project
characteristics, innovation and
scaling ambitions
• What innovations are we trying to
scale and why? What is the scaling
context?

4. What is the innovation package?
• Core innovation - main focus of the project that are brought to scale
• Complementary innovations are innovations necessary to scale core
innovations. They are often more context specific and related to the
broader environment that can enable or constrain the core innovation
to have impact at scale.
• Core innovations + Complementary Innovations = innovation package

5. Step 2: Understand the innovation system
The innovation system refers ‘to the complex interplay between an
innovation and the environment or landscape in which it is developed,
tested, or scaled
What are landscapes
Innovation landscape
Intervention Landscapes
Stakeholder landscapes
Understand the landscape to identify site specific bottle necks that may
need to be addressed

6. Landscapes
Innovation landscape: the complementary innovations that may impede
or support the scaling of a core innovation;
Intervention landscape: the set of projects, programs, and other
initiatives that are working on similar problems, similar objectives, are
promoting compatible or competing core or complementary innovations
The stakeholder landscape: the networks of stakeholders that have the
ability to influence, develop, or work on (the scaling of) innovations.

7. Step 3: Define intended scaling outcome: One size
does not fit all
The core innovation may be the same but
complementary innovations, stakeholders
and intervention landscapes may vary.
Depending on intended scaling outcome
you may need s different innovation
package:
Scaling a tilapia breed for nutrition
Scaling a Tilapia breed for increased
productivity
Scaling a Tilapia breed for income

8. Step 4: Understand the bottlenecks: What
complementary innovations do we need
e.g. Fully developed online
learning platform
Developed market approach
Liebig's barrel

9. Partners
• WorldFish
• Musika
• BluePlanet
• NRDC
• Department of
Fisheries (Zambia)

10. Sartas, M., Schut, M., van Schagen, B., Velasco, C., Thiele, G., Proietti, C., and Leeuwis,
2020. Scaling Readiness: Concepts, Practices, and Implementation. CGIAR Research
Program on Roots, Tubers and Bananas (RTB). January 2020, pp 217.
Available at www.scalingreadiness.org and www.rtb.cgiar.org.

11. Acknowledgments
The project is funded by the Norwegian Agency for Development
Cooperation (Norad)-Agreement ZAM-18/0002, Aquaculture
Technical, Vocational, and Entrepreneurship Training for Improved
Private Sector and Smallholder Skills.
This work will be undertaken as part of the CGIAR Research Program
on Fish Agri-Food Systems (FISH).