Governance and Structure

Past Workshops

Sept. 29 - How can governance evolve to include a growing number of local units that are increasingly important?

Listen to an audio record of the workshop
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The event featured two mini-case presentations by Ursula Wynhoven of The Global Compact and Valeria Merino of Transparency International (Quito, Ecuador). Valeria highlighted lessons learned from the evolution of TI's governance model since its founding in 1993. Ursula described the governance issues faced by a global network with a rapidly growing number of local chapters and related demands to address evolving local-global relationships.

This session focused on two questions:

As the number of local offices grows, what is the role of the Global Office to influence local network strategies and capabilities?
How do you include local offices in global decisions that will affect the whole network?

Key issues included:

Governance structures reflect networks at multiple levels: local, regional, and global (possibly others, e.g., individual organizations)
Rigorous criteria to accredit and support local networks (aka, chapters, alliances, etc.): When, why, and how
Using an existing local institution to serve as "host" organization for local network: Advantages and success factors
Representation in decision-making forums: Considerations regarding relative voting power of board, chapters, individual actors (people, organizations)
Importance of shared understanding and values to support democratic governance structures and processes
How governance structures evolve as the organization evolves - particularly as the strategic importance and power of local networks increases

The case material highlighted why these issues were important to address and suggested a number of guidelines and lessons learned for global networks facing governance challenges. We expect to have continued conversations on this topic.

These calls emphasize peer-to-peer learning. As such, the speakers (and all participants) on the call represent themselves as professional practitioners, not in a formal role that necessarily represents the views of their organizations.