No innovation scales alone: Lessons from Scaling Week in Latin America and the Caribbean 2026

No innovation scales alone: Lessons from Scaling Week in Latin America and the Caribbean 2026

How can innovations and solutions expand their impact and contribute to more resilient food systems in Latin America and the Caribbean? Over three days, the second edition of Scaling Week brought together experiences from science, practice, public policy, and territories to reflect on an answer: responsible scaling requires evidence, context-adapted strategies, a clear understanding of demand, and actors capable of making it happen collectively.

Latin America and the Caribbean faces challenges such as climate change, natural resource degradation, food insecurity, and territorial inequalities. Although the region has innovations with the potential to contribute to more resilient, sustainable, and inclusive agrifood systems, many remain at the pilot stage or fail to achieve the expected impact. The challenge is not only to generate solutions, but to scale them responsibly and sustain their impact according to the conditions of each context.

With this challenge as a starting point, from 19 to 21 August 2026, the second edition of Scaling Week in Latin America and the Caribbean was held as a virtual space for exchange, learning, and collective knowledge-building to strengthen capacities and connect actors and experiences around the responsible scaling of innovations and solutions that contribute to strengthening the resilience of the region’s food systems.

Over three days, the agenda moved from what we know about scaling, to how to put it into practice, and finally to what makes sense to scale and with whom, addressing Scaling Science, Scaling Practice, and Demand Analysis and Networks for Scaling.

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