Event Takeaways: “Scaling Innovations in the Global South: Experiences & Evidence”

On 2nd April, the Pratham Network had an opportunity to celebrate Pratham Education Foundation 's 30th anniversary on the sidelines of the #SkollWorldForum through the event, "Scaling Innovations in the Global South: Experiences & Evidence.” Hosted by Pratham International , this discussion brought together an incredible community of practitioners, funders, and change makers for an honest conversations on what it takes to innovate, scale, and sustain change in education, healthcare, and youth empowerment across the global south.

Over the past three decades, Pratham has piloted and scaled innovations in education and livelihoods — many of which have been taken up and adapted in diverse contexts. Reflecting on their own unique journeys and experiences, speakers shared their thoughts — some bold, some innovative, some exciting, but all enlightening.

So, what did they say? Take a look:

Staying curious and responsive as an organisation: Balakrishnan('Bala') Venkatachalam COO Pratham International and Manushi Yadav , Director of Strategy and Programs at Pratham USA shared that Pratham’s culture has been shaped by constant learning and innovating. Since its inception, Pratham has learned from the communities it serves and even today, innovation continues within the Pratham network with activities underway on how AI might support the delivery of education programs like Teaching At The Right Level in the years to come.

Shahed Alam , Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Noora Health reiterated the importance of learning from and staying open to new approaches.

Noam Angrist, co-founder of Youth Impact and Academic Director at the What Works Hub for Global Education , emphasised the importance of flexibility and a culture of curiosity as key traits shared by many organisations that have successfully scaled and generated impact. He pointed out that randomisation, which is essential for establishing causation, does not have to be prohibitively expensive.

Evidence-based decision-making and scaling through systems: Jessica La Mesa , Co-CEO, The Life You Can Save spoke about their approach to supporting evidence-driven programs like TaRL Africa, emphasising the role of working with governments and using data to inform scale. Anushree Parekh , Associate Director of Social Finance at the British Asian Trust introduced outcome-based financing and the organisation's journey in enabling social finance in India. One of her key reflections? “You need government buy-in from the start. And to work effectively with governments, you need low-cost models that can scale.”

Thinking Beyond Scale: During the panel “Innovating and Scaling Across Sectors” Sharmi Surianarain , Chief Impact Officer at Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator made a compelling point that one must understand that scale is different than Systems Change.

“Systems change is not as easy as baking a cake, not as complicated as sending a rocket to the moon—but as complex as raising a child,” Sharmi said. 

Keeping simplicity and relevance in tools and approaches: RCTs seem to be seen as the gold standard for measuring impact, but they may not be the right tool/approach for effective learning of your organisation. Reflecting on this challenge, Claire Hutchings , Director for Monitoring, Evidence & Learning at BRAC , emphasised the need to think about the right tools for your questions. Devyani Pershad , Director of Programs and Partnerships at Pratham International, highlighted that it was important for interventions to not only think about context but also keep focusing on simplicity as programs went from pilot to scale! 

Innovation and Scaling require working with diverse stakeholders: While discussing their respective experiences of scaling education programs in Sub-Saharan Africa and Central America, Titus Syengo , Executive Director of Teaching at the Right Level Africa , and Celina de Sola , Co-Founder and President of Glasswing International discussed their experiences of working with different stakeholders. In Sub-Saharan Africa, TaRL Africa is supporting the long-term integration of TaRL into public systems. In Central America, Glasswing is collaborating with eager public systems while bolstering support for its programming in communities and aspiring youth. 

Learnings from “curious” organisations: John Floretta , Global Deputy Executive Director, Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) shared five major lessons from working with organisations like Pratham and BRAC:

• Research must be integrated into organisational learning, as shown in TaRL’s journey with evaluations over the years.
• High-impact models can generalize across diverse settings (e.g., BRAC 's ultra-poor graduation approach being scaled across 7 countries with lasting impact).
• Scaling through government systems requires skills different from direct delivery.
• Learning and iteration must never stop.
• Partnerships and shared learning accelerate broader uptake and adaptation.

Funding as an enabler for scaling: While evidence of impact seemed to be an important starting point for enabling funding for scale, pathways emerging beyond the traditional institutional funders were discussed. Aashti Zaidi Hai , Founder and CEO of Global Schools Forum , brought out the diversity in the definition of success for funders while realising that impact at scale was often a common goal.

Aashti also mentioned the role of communities of practice in co-learning, engaging with evidence, and knowledge diffusion.

A heartfelt thank you to all our speakers, partners, and attendees for making it such an energising and thought-provoking day! We look forward to keeping the conversation going as we learn and share together.