Publish Date: May 2020
Author: MCSP
This guide is for those supporting a systematic process of scale-up. Although the process can be managed successfully in various ways, we wrote this guide specifically with the perspective that there is a “scale-up coordinator” or scale-up manager. The concept for this figure is based on that used by the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID’s) Center for Innovation and Impact (CII), who calls this person an “Uptake Coordinator” or “Product Manager.” It is described in the text box. CII, in turn, adapted this idea from the successful experiences of the Chlorhexidine (CHX) Work Group and the US pharmaceutical industry which often employs product managers to facilitate the rollout of a new drug or vaccine and see it through to rapid and widespread use. We generalize the concept to include scale-up of a service or approach. In global health, we feel that having a specific person in charge of the various processes and tasks is critical, because there are needs for coordination that span across various roles and touch on multiple routine systems, multiple Ministry of Health (MOH) departments, other public sector institutions, various partner agencies, and private sector partners. Someone supporting scale-up needs the scope and authority to bridge these divides. In order to be effective, this person must juggle various types of activities including technical and management roles. In the experiences used illustratively in this guide, the scale-up coordinator was someone working in the country office of an agency giving technical support to country-led MOH scale-up efforts, but with the right terms of reference and level of authority, this person could also be someone within the government structure itself.
