Growing the Wealth of the Poor - World Resources Institute

BOX 1.2 WHAT IS SCALING UP?10In general, scaling up refers to increasing the scope or reach ofan activity, program, project, or initiative so that it serves morepeople or delivers more or better benefits.WHILE THIS SEEMS STRAIGHTFORWARD ENOUGH,the term “scaling up” can be confusing because we use it inseveral ways. Its meaning depends on what is being scaled andthe type of scaling up that is occurring.What Are We Scaling Up?In the broadest sense, we want to scale up:■ Poverty reduction, using the assets from ecosystems as abasis for wealth creation, and■ Resilience of local communities—especially poor families—to accommodate environmental and social change,particularly arising from climate change.However, these are ultimate goals. In World Resources 2008, weuse the term scaling up more specifically to refer to the meansto achieve these ultimate goals. Thus we want to scale up:■ Environmental income—income from ecosystems andnature-related activities,■ Access—the power to use ecosystem resources to supportlivelihoods and empowerment,■ Environmental enterprises—generators of environmentalincome and livelihood skills, and■ Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM)—the basis of much enterprise, social learning, andempowerment.These four elements are interrelated, as described here:To reduce income poverty, we focus on increasing the quantityof income from nature—in other words, scaling up environmentalincome. This can result from higher productivity from thenatural resource base due to better management, from generatingnew services like trophy hunting or carbon storage, or fromextracting greater value from traditional products like coffee,handicrafts, or medicinal plants due to better businesspractices or marketing. Environmental income can take theform of subsistence services—food, building materials, or fuel,for instance—but more and more must also translate into thecash economy if the rural poor are eventually to be integratedinto mainstream national and global economies.Environmental income cannot be scaled up unless the poorhave access to ecosystem resources—or the power to use theseresources for benefit within the current economic and politicalsystem. With real access comes empowerment and socialbenefits beyond just income.Environmental income is realized through some form of enterprise,be it farming, fishing, collection of non-timber forestproducts, or provision of services like tourism. Scaling upenvironmental income means increasing the scale, viability,and profitability of these enterprises—and doing so sustainably.For the rural poor, many of these enterprises are best undertakencollectively as community-based schemes, since many ofthe resources they use are common pool resources. Scaling upCBNRM, then, is often the route to scaling up environmentalincome and environmental enterprise.Most current development literature uses “scaling up” in thislast sense of scaling up a successful CBNRM project, approach,or initiative. While this is certainly desirable, in this volume wedo not restrict our definition of scaling up to donor-fundedprojects or initiatives. We go further to speak of scaling upsuccessful and equitable ecosystem enterprises. Such enterprisesare the expression of conducive governance conditions,market and business skills, and good natural resource management,which we believe are the basis of sustainability andresilience.Five Types of Scaling UpWe can speak in terms of five different modes of scaling up, allof which can help increase the development impact of an enterprise,project, initiative, or organization.■ Quantitative scaling up. When an enterprise, program, ororganization expands its size, profitability, geographic base,or budget, it is experiencing quantitative scaling. This is thekind of growth and expansion of membership base,constituency, or geographic influence that most people thinkof when they speak of scaling up. It often involves replicatinga successful community-based model or enterprise in newcommunities or simply spreading the original enterprise orprogram to cover a larger area—a process sometimes referredto as “scaling out.” But quantitative scaling can also simplyinvolve growing an enterprise’s size and profitability, and thusincreasing its social and financial sustainability (Hooper et al.2004:132; Uvin and Miller 1994:8-11; Gillespie 2004:8).