Tool #6
Benchmarking and Tracking Vertical Scale Up
A planning tool to prioritize systems-level results and track progress related to vertical scale up (institutionalization).
SOURCE: Promising Practices in Scale up Monitoring, Learning, and Evaluation: A Compendium of Resources; Benchmark Tables
After selecting an intervention/activity for scale up there is a final, critical consideration—How will this intervention/activity be institutionalized into systems to achieve widespread and sustained results? This is also called vertical scale up. Vertical scale up is important because if an intervention/activity is not supported by priorities, policies, and systems, it is unlikely to be sustained after it expands to new sites. Working through this tool and the next (on horizontal scaleup) will be useful in refining your results framework and in guiding monitoring and evaluation.
How to use this tool
- Brainstorm desired vertical scale-up results; it may be helpful to consult country or organizational strategic planning documents.
- Analyze the action plan along with outputs of any assessment and planning discussions you have held to determine what policy actions are needed to create vertical scale.
- Discuss and write agreed-upon results statements.
- For each result statement, flag policy, organizational and budgetary reforms that are needed to achieve that result. “Brainstorm” the actions Joining Forces members and partners could take (e.g., advocacy, proposal of inter-ministerial initiatives, etc.) to advance those reforms.
- Find an indicator(s) that would tell you if it has been achieved. Outline the intermediary steps needed to get to the end result.
- Check back every 6 months to monitor and track progress.
Children’s Engagement
When using this tool Joining Forces seeks children’s engagement in two distinct ways: 1) integrating information about children’s views and perspectives as it relates to the tool’s topic and 2) as a source of data for each tool. Locating opportunities for child participation and child safeguarding (as separate and complementary) is a shared responsibility of all Joining Forces partners. In this tool, children can be involved in vetting and prioritizing the benchmarks that local Joining Forces team propose. Benchmarks can be displayed graphically in a child-friendly way to solicit their feedback and suggestions for additional results which should be monitored. Other ideas for asking children about prioritizing benchmarks can be found in the “Tools and Techniques for Children’s Engagement” compendium provided at the end of this guide.