Strategic initiatives: Public sector scaling
We have been making strides as we implement our Public Sector Demand and Scale Strategy, which aims to create more direct pathways for scale-ready innovations to be adopted and scaled by governments
At Grand Challenges Canada, we are driven by a mission to transform promising ideas into impactful solutions that can improve lives worldwide. Scaling and sustaining innovation is at the heart of what we do.
As an innovation platform, we take on the risk inherent to innovation. Our phased investment structure is a de-risking strategy: a funnel where data from earlier funding stages drives evidence-based decisions about which initiatives should continue to be supported as they transition to scale. By the end of this funding process, each innovation has undergone an in-depth, multi-year procurement process based on several gates, making it one of the safest bets a government can make.
We know that governments, multilateral organizations, and global health institutions have distinct and complementary roles to play in the uptake of health innovation via the public sector. However, historically, this has been challenging to coordinate, and the transaction costs have been high.
Our Public Sector Demand and Scale Strategy, launched in 2021, was designed to create more direct pathways for scale-ready innovations to be adopted and scaled by governments.
For more than a decade in the innovation for impact space, with a maturing pipeline of proven health innovations, two things are clear:
- Proven innovations exist that are ready to save and improve lives at scale.
- Public sector pathways are critically important to achieving scale and ensuring lasting impact. Data from our projects shows that innovations on a public sector pathway to scale and sustainability are more likely to sustain or increase impact post-funding, with 95% of innovations scaling via the public sector reporting ongoing impact compared to 70% pursuing private sector pathways and 80% pursuing hybrid pathways.
Learn more about our approach and key lessons on public sector scaling below.
Mainstreaming scaling: Grand Challenges Canada's approach
From the beginning, Grand Challenges Canada has prioritized innovation for impact, rooted in the principles of scale and sustainability. Integrated Innovation—a cornerstone of our approach—ensures that innovators consider pathways to scale from the outset.
At every stage, from seed funding to Transition to Scale, GCC embeds considerations for scale, offering grants and concessionary risk capital to bridge the gap between pilot and scale. Over time, we have evolved our approach by introducing phased investments, increasing funding limits, and experimenting with technical assistance, culminating in a diverse portfolio of investments. With support from Global Affairs Canada, our largest and longest-standing funder, we have continuously refined our funding strategies over the years, drawing on the lessons from innovators' scaling journeys.
We recognize the complexities of scaling innovations and we support public, private, and hybrid models while addressing systemic barriers through ecosystem-focused initiatives. These include ecosystem catalyst grants and partnerships with multilateral organizations like the WHO. To measure success, we use bespoke impact modelling to highlight the long-term value of investments. We have learned over time that locally-led innovations and flexible funding strategies are key to sustaining and scaling impact.
Produced for the Scaling Community of Practice's Mainstreaming Initiative, this case study discusses our experience integrating a scaling perspective our funding approach, what we've learned, and how the development community can support the scaling of successful development innovations.
The Mountain Model
As an innovation platform, we use the Mountain Model to help public sector actors articulate demand and find innovations that can be scaled through their systems.
Led by Nairobi-based Insight Health Advisors, this approach involves a 6-step, government-led, structured facilitation process for sourcing and scaling innovation.
This year, the Mountain Model achieved an important milestone in Kenya's Makueni and Kajiado counties. Four solutions, including two GCC-funded innovations, Sanivation (a comprehensive waste management solution) and Health-e-NET (digitization of patient data entry through mobile phones and Optical Character Recognition technology), were selected by the county governments for adoption and scale.
The innovations are signing Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) with the counties, which include county financial and in-kind commitments for implementation. Matched funders have been identified for the selected innovations and both counties have committed to institutionalizing demand articulation processes.
Makueni County will adopt the articulation-of-demand methodology as a process to employ in future innovation sourcing/selections.Kajiado County plans to create a team with a specific focus on scaling innovations.
The Mountain Model approach is also being used to support the adoption of 'm-mama', an emergency transportation system for mothers and newborns that connects women to care through a national network of community drivers and ambulances. In Tanzania, the Global Financing Facility has invested $8M in m-mama, while the Gates Foundation is supporting a roll-out in Ethiopia, and other countries are exploring adoption.
As part of our Public Sector Demand and Scale Strategy, we will continue to promote and expand the use of the Mountain Model with public sector partners, in Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, and beyond.
Partnerships for scaling innovation
Through partnerships with multilateral organizations, we are working to support more innovations beyond the transition to scale phase.
Another key pathway towards scale is the development of strategic partnerships with multi-lateral organizations, such as the World Health Organization (WHO), that are uniquely positioned to play a critical role as proxies for local governments. By focusing on demand and supporting partnerships to enable innovation scale-up through government systems, GCC is poised to support more innovations at the early stages of scaling beyond the transition-to-scale phase.
With the award of an ecosystem catalyst grant to WHO in late 2023, GCC is providing support to WHO through its country offices to engage with governments and surface demand for health innovations addressing local needs. Together with other partners, GCC will consider making investments in innovations whose demand has been validated by the WHO.
The partnership with WHO has already resulted in a number of promising achievements, including the World Health Innovation Forum in November 2023, which was attended by several WHO member states and focused on the Mountain Model, and the publication of a Global ‘Call to Action’ for health innovation scale-up by the public sector.
Humanitarian Innovation Adoption Strategy
For many humanitarian innovations, the key pathway to reaching the people most in need of assistance is through innovation adoption by large humanitarian aid agencies. However, for the majority of innovations, inflexible funding, complex procurement processes, and an overall reluctance to embrace new approaches are barriers to adoption, especially for locally led innovations in conflict settings.
To continue addressing this challenge and building on the success of the Public Sector Demand and Scale Strategy, we developed an Innovation Adoption Strategy for innovations funded through our humanitarian innovation area of impact. The Adoption Strategy employs a three-pronged approach:
1. Supply-driven collaboration and matchmaking: Build and enhance our current adoption efforts, promoting a pipeline of ready-to-adopt innovations across the humanitarian ecosystem.
2. Demand-driven approach: Expand our work to catalyze demand for humanitarian innovations early in the innovation selection process. To achieve this, we will collaborate with potential adopters to address procurement processes and political barriers to innovation adoption. This approach includes the launch of ecosystem catalyst grants, which will seek to encourage and incentivize large humanitarian actors to take up and adopt humanitarian innovations.
3. Impact and knowledge dissemination: We will measure the outcomes and progress of our matchmaking and demand-driven approach, and share the resulting knowledge and learnings with the broader humanitarian ecosystem.