Sustainability and Replication

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Because development interventions usually start out as theories these are often implemented on a small, experimental scale - a pilot. As soon as efforts start to show desired results, Development Entrepreneurs start looking for ways to scale up the reform (some leading-edge DEs like Jaime Faustino say reforms, from the beginning, should be scalable).

Scaling up means implementing the reforms on a wider scale. In the context of the Philippines, this usually means replicating the pilot nationwide - and often, because pilot projects are necessarily time-bounded, without the continuing intervention and support of a funded proponent.

In simpler terms, once you’ve tested and proven that a development reform works in one place, how do you make it happen everywhere else - without being involved in the process anymore?  How do you influence events over space (the rest of the country) and time (after your project funds have run out) so that the reform you’ve introduced spreads?

Jaime says reforms can only be sustained by one of two standing armies - government, and the market. If you can harness both for your advocacy, the better your chances of sustainability and replication.

One way of achieving both is by supporting the issuance of a policy directive or, better, a law. But such laws, implemented by a weak state, tend to work like rope - you can use it to pull somebody in, but not to push them. Laws can act as enablers - you can use it to back up your reform. It’s more difficult to use laws to push somebody to do something - specially when enforcement of consequences for non-compliance is so weak, or when the reform is not considered an urgent matter.

Another approach is to get larger (regional and national) organizations to adopt the reform, hoping that they would drive it’s spread among their members. Still another approach is to use the “inggit effect”, where the pilot implementor shows off their accomplishment and gets others to say, “if they can do it, so can we.” 

Planning for nationwide implementation without continuing interventions also reinforces the idea that the DE’s work is done when his intervention is no longer needed - wait, wasn’t that what they said about the Community Organizer’s work? Instead of leading reforms in one place after another like a dealership opening branches all over the country, the DE can continue performing a leadership role by tackling other development challenges.


And any plans for sustainability should be tempered with humility in the face of change. For sure circumstances will change, young turks will become the old guard, today’s innovative reforms can turn into tomorrow’s stagnant status quo. In the end, reforms can only be sustained for as long as they actually address needs and provide benefits. When they don’t work anymore, better take another theory and do another pilot.

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