The Networks of UNESCO REF: eleven technical departments, the School Network and the Community Network, the institutional architecture through which UNESCO REF delivers its mandate across 36 states and the FCT, with independent Non-Executive Directors.
The Read and Earn School Network and the Read and Earn Community Network, together with Friends of UNESCO (REF).
Non-Executive Directors bring independent judgement to the governance of UNESCO REF: strategic oversight, accountability, integrity and stewardship of the networks.
Purpose. A national development institution must deliver specialised programmes across a large and diverse federation while remaining coherent, accountable and faithful to a single mandate. This paper asks what organisational design allows it to do so, and how that design should extend beyond the institution's boundary to the schools, communities and partners on which delivery depends. Approach. An integrative review of five bodies of research: classical administrative theory (Gulick; Weber); contingency theory (Burns and Stalker; Lawrence and Lorsch); the configuration of organisations and the information-processing view of design (Mintzberg; Galbraith); decentralisation and federalism (Oates; Faguet); and network forms, governance and management (Powell; Provan and Kenis; Provan and Milward; Agranoff and McGuire; Klijn and Koppenjan; Wenger). Findings. Institutions that deliver across varied environments combine deliberate specialisation with strong integration; invest in information and lateral coordination; locate decisions at the level where knowledge sits; and govern the wider network of partners through a legitimate lead organisation with common standards. Effectiveness must be judged simultaneously at the level of communities, the network and its members. Originality and implications. The paper derives nine design principles for a networked national institution and shows how UNESCO REF's eleven departments, four clusters, Directors, Non-Executive Directors and two participation networks apply them.
Purpose. Development agendas end; the need for development institutions does not. Many organisations created to pursue the Millennium Development Goals did not survive into the era of the Sustainable Development Goals. This paper asks which features of structure and governance allow an institution to endure from one agenda to the next while remaining effective. Approach. An integrative review of organisational ecology (Stinchcombe; Hannan and Freeman), imprinting (Marquis and Tilcsik), institutional leadership (Selznick), enduring organisations (Collins and Porras), organisational learning and adaptation (March; Teece, Pisano and Shuen), resilience (Boin and van Eeten), and corporate and nonprofit governance (Fama and Jensen; Pfeffer and Salancik; Hillman and Dalziel; Davis, Schoorman and Donaldson; Cornforth; Block and Rosenberg), together with the governance codes that define the role of non-executive directors (Cadbury; Higgs; the Nigerian Code of Corporate Governance). Findings. Institutions endure when they survive the vulnerabilities of youth; when they are reliable and accountable; when their structure is organised around functions rather than the targets of a single agenda; when they preserve a core purpose while adapting their methods; and when their governance separates management from control, connects the institution to resources, and guards against dependence on any single leader. Originality and implications. The paper maps the functions of a national development institution against both the MDGs and the SDGs, showing how function-based structures pass from one agenda to the next intact, and explains why independent Non-Executive Directors strengthen an institution's capacity to reach 2030 and beyond.
They are the institution's operational infrastructure: eleven technical departments with defined mandates, together with the Read and Earn School Network and the Read and Earn Community Network, operating across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
Direction is set by the Presidency and each department is led by a Director. The departments are organised in four clusters: operations and accountability, voice and relationships, programme delivery, and citizens and participation. Non-Executive Directors provide independent oversight.
Literacy Advancement, which operates the Read and Earn Literacy Centre, established in 2011. Literacy is the root of UNESCO REF's mandate.
They provide independent oversight, constructive challenge and counsel. They do not manage departments or hold executive authority; they hold the institution's leadership to account and safeguard its integrity.
Schools, colleges and universities join the Read and Earn School Network, and community leaders and civil society organisations join the Read and Earn Community Network, by writing to [email protected].
The departments are organised around enduring functions rather than the targets of one agenda, so in 2015 the mandate was realigned to the SDGs without disruption to the structure. Paper No. 2 on this page sets out the argument.
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