Getting to Scale: How to Bring Development Solutions to Millions of Poor People

The global development community is teeming with different ideas and interventions to improve the lives of the world’s poorest people. Whether these ideas have a transformative impact depends not just on their individual brilliance but on whether they can be brought to a scale to reach millions of poor people. The new book,
Getting to Scale: How to Bring Development Solutions to Millions of Poor People
(Brookings Press, 2013), explores what it takes to expand the reach of development solutions beyond an individual village or pilot program to poor people everywhere. 

On June 28, the Development Assistance and Governance Initiative at Brookings and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) co-hosted a discussion on Getting to Scale. Panelists included Eliza Erikson, director of investments at the Omidyar Network; Akio Hosono, senior research advisor at the JICA Research Institute; Brookings Senior Fellow Homi Kharas, deputy director of the Global Economy and Development program; and Maura O’Neill, chief innovation officer and senior counselor at the U.S. Agency for International Development. Paul O’Brien, vice president for policy and campaigns at Oxfam America, moderated the discussion.