This paper looks at the experience of getting to scale in Private Sector Development (PSD) programmes. In particular, it looks at the successes and failures of programmes in scaling pro-poor 'innovations'. In the context of PSD an ‘innovation’ might be a new or improved product or service, such as mobile money, or a new or improved business practice, such as a new village-level distribution model that allows an agro-inputs supplier to better reach and serve customers at the Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP). The paper focuses on taking the initial ‘innovation’ to scale: section A summarises a variety of different strategies and tactics for getting to scale; in section B, ten lessons in getting to scale are presented, drawing on a variety of programmes and contexts; and section C concludes by discussing the implications for donors and practitioners. The Annex presents a new tool to track progress in getting to scale
This paper draws on the experience of Adam Smith International in implementing a large number of PSD (particularly market system development) programmes across the developing world. It also draws on a number of external programme case studies,