Publications

Since 2011, the CGIAR program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security
(CCAFS) has supported research in different parts of the world on how climate-smart
technologies, practices and information can address the challenge of transitioning to climatesmart
agriculture at a large scale under the new realities of climate change. The working
paper critically examines how CCAFS researchers have conceptualized and practiced the
scaling of climate-smart agriculture interventions. The review of CCAFS research is
complemented by a discussion of some of the recent social science literature on scaling and
closely related topics, such as (diffusion of) innovation and institutionalization. Although
more recently the conceptual, methodological and practical challenges related to scaling of
climate-smart agriculture have received more attention, there remains a need for the
development of a more coherent theory of scaling informed by insights from sociology,
political sciences and gender studies.