Applying ExpandNet’s Systematic Approach to Scaling Up in an Integrated Population, Health and Environment Project in East Africa

While the importance of pursuing integrated population, health and environment (PHE) approaches and ensuring their sustainable expansion to regional and national levels have been widely affirmed in the development field, little practical experience and evidence exist about how this can be accomplished. This paper lays out the systematic approach to scale up developed by ExpandNet and subsequently illustrates its application in the Health of People and Environment in the Lake Victoria Basin (HoPE-LVB) project, which is an integrated PHE project implemented in Uganda and Kenya from 2012–2017.

Results demonstrate not only the perceived relevance of pursuing integrated development approaches by stakeholders but also the fundamental value of systematically designing and implementing the project with focused attention to scale up, as well as the challenges involved in operationalizing commitment to integration among bureaucratic agencies deeply grounded in vertical departmental approaches.

Published 2 January 2018 in social sciences