Systems That Last: Scaling with Government Co-Investment

​Across Africa, many of the strongest solutions do not stall because they lack impact. They stall because sustainable scale is hard. The harder question is not whether a model works, but what it takes for the government to back it, budget for it, and carry it over time.

​This conversation brings together Fika, Food4Education, and Healthy Learners, alongside Zambia’s Permanent Secretary for Administration at the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, for a practical discussion on that challenge. Each organization is addressing a different bottleneck in the same system of opportunity: safe access to services and markets, reliable school meals, and access to healthcare in schools. Together, they offer a grounded view of what durable scale actually requires: credible evidence, political sponsorship, financing pathways, delivery capability, and the trust needed to move from partner-led execution to government ownership.

​Moderated by Rebecca Eastmond (Co-Founder & CEO of Greenwood Place), the session will focus less on success stories and more on the harder questions that determine whether scale actually sticks. What makes government adoption durable? What needs to be true for a model to be investable and institutionally viable? Where does the role of NGO stop and public ownership start? And when does external support enable scale, rather than delay it? This will be a candid, interactive conversation for funders, practitioners, and public leaders interested in moving from promising models to durable public systems.