Scaling Playbook: A Guidance Document for Responsibly Scaling Agricultural Solutions

This Scaling Playbook provides a practical, evidence-based guide for translating agricultural innovations into sustained, equitable impact at scale, emphasizing that scaling is not a linear diffusion process but a dynamic, context-sensitive systems transformation. Drawing on AICCRA and CGIAR experiences, it outlines key concepts, frameworks, and step-by-step tools to design responsible scaling pathways—from defining ambitions and analyzing demand, to packaging innovations, selecting delivery mechanisms, ensuring financial sustainability, and embedding solutions within institutional systems. Central to the playbook is the principle of responsible scaling, which prioritizes equity, inclusion, environmental integrity, and adaptive learning by anticipating risks, addressing power dynamics, and aligning innovations with local contexts and stakeholder needs. Through structured approaches such as innovation packaging, scaling readiness, and iterative MELIA frameworks, the document guides practitioners in building partnerships, managing trade-offs, and making evidence-based decisions—including when to adapt, pause, or stop scaling—ultimately aiming to achieve durable, climate-resilient, and socially just outcomes in agrifood systems.