Call for Papers: Scaling Up USAID's Leveraging Economic Opportunities (LEO) Project

Leveraging Economic Opportunities (LEO) is a three-year contract to support USAID programming that fosters inclusive growth through markets. LEO is contributing to learning in a number of interrelated technical areas, including scaling up technology adoption and beneficiary outreach.

LEO seeks to identify and document successful strategies and models of scale up, and to understand both the operating principles and factors in the market system and socio-political environment that enabled them to succeed. These examples, complete with qualitative and quantitative measures of scale of impact, will be widely disseminated to USAID Missions and operating bureaus, as well as project implementers to strengthen learning in this area.

Examples of interest may fall into one or both of the following categories:

1. Proven models for reaching beneficiaries at scale. Many business and/or market systems models developed through USAID projects have proved successful in reaching scale, even with the rural poor. Models such as input and output agent networks and nucleus farmer arrangements have the potential to reach large numbers of marginalized and poor populations through sustainable, commercial incentives. Since models always need to be tailored to the local context, learning about what made these models effective can be highly informative. This includes tactics to manage loyalty between buyer and supplier, build capacity, manage risk, stimulate change while avoiding dependence on subsidy, and so on.  

2. Successful strategies for scaling up technology adoption. Technologies can have a transformative effect, enabling leaps forward in the ability of individuals, firms, and communities to achieve food security, withstand shocks, and experience economic growth. Successful technology uptake requires clear social and/or economic incentives, an enabling policy environment, and commercially sustainable market services that reach into poor rural areas. Analysis of successful examples of technology scale up should inform learning in areas including, but not limited to, how to give momentum to the adoption process, the effectiveness of retail promotional strategies, and how to stimulate local adaptation.

Value chain and market systems development practitioners are invited to submit brief synopses of project examples that fit within one or both of the categories described above. These examples must have quantitative and qualitative evidence of reaching scale.

Submissions should be brief (less than 500 words) and should include the following:

• Project title, duration, location, and implementer.
• Brief description of model or technology.
• Scale and impact reached.
• Major lessons learned.

Funding will be made available for the more comprehensive documentation of selected examples that are determined to be of particular interest to USAID. Successful submissions will be featured in an upcoming report to USAID Missions and operating units on lessons learned in scaling up and may also be featured in future presentations to USAID and its implementing partners.

Submissions should be sent to [email protected] by March 31, 2014.

The LEO team looks forward to learning with you in this important area.