Taking a multi-stakeholder and data-driven approach to scaling impact equitably

• In Event: ECD and Education Quality Improvement at Scale: Centering Equity in Design, Data, and Developing Partnerships

Proposal

Scaling early childhood development and education initiatives and practices is a team effort. It is rare that a single organization has all the knowledge, skills, capacity, networks, and resources necessary to see a scaling process through successfully and in ways that take both equity and sustainability into account. Addressing large-scale, complex social issues requires collective action between diverse actors bringing different perspectives, resources, and expertise.
Such a multi-stakeholder approach is also important from an equity perspective, since it assembles diverse actors who bring distinct viewpoints, priorities, and understandings of the system to make decisions in participatory ways and to advocate for equitable funding, access, and assessment for marginalized groups. It can also disrupt existing patterns of who is involved in decision-making and encourage participants to communicate in ways that are accessible and inclusive. Different stakeholders can play specific and specialized roles in the process of scaling, depending on their position in the system, motivation, and risk tolerance.
However, this does not mean that the more stakeholders involved, the better. “Too many cooks in the kitchen” can also be true in a scaling process. Multi-stakeholder approaches are time consuming, require relational care, add logistical challenges, and do not always display immediate results. A diverse array of stakeholders involved often means diverging incentives and scaling visions that must be managed. Overly complex or mismatched partnerships can significantly hinder progress rather than move things forward. It is essential that scaling teams take a strategic and nuanced approach to engaging stakeholders, paying sufficient attention to each actor’s role in the ecosystem, motivation and incentives, value addition, and vision of scaling and success, as well as existing power dynamics between actors, and then make informed and deliberate decisions about who to engage, when, and how.
In this presentation, CUE will highlight the benefits of taking a multistakeholder approach to scaling and strategically engaging diverse stakeholders in various roles in a scaling journey, using the specific example of scaling champions, as well as touch on potential challenges to mitigate. Research makes clear that champions play an integral role in the scaling process and scaling teams often note the identification, cultivation, and deployment of scaling champions as a key priority. However, the term “champion” is not monolithic, but covers a wide range of actors engaged with scaling in different ways for different purposes. Scaling teams often focus on cultivating high-level political champions, but our research suggests it is essential to engage champions within and outside government and at all system levels in support of scaling sustainably and equitably. CUE will also discuss other avenues for scaling teams to engage with equity issues in the scaling process and common barriers.

Author

• Molly Curtiss Wyss, Brookings Institution