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​​​With IFLA’s Strategy for 2019-24 in place, now is the time to ensure that we have the right structures, as an organisation, to deliver on our vision and mission. IFLA’s Governance Review – the process for achieving this – is already well advanced.

Throughout the Global Vision process, leading up to the presentation of the IFLA Strategy 2019-2024 at WLIC 2019 in Athens, IFLA’s Members have played a central role in our transformation.

Thanks to this, we are in a better place than ever before to build a strong and united library field. The Governance Review is the step that will ensure that IFLA has the structure to deliver on its new Strategy.

This process is already well underway, drawing strongly on the input provided by IFLA’s Members, reflecting IFLA’s commitment to listening and taking account of the library field’s feedback and views.

Governing Board Work Groups

As a first step in September, we created three Work Groups to examine our Governing Board, Professional Units, and Strategic Committees.

We asked them the following questions:

  • Is the current structure the best to deliver IFLA’s mission, vision, values, and strategic directions?
  • If not, what are the issues that must be addressed?
  • What solutions would solve those issues, and are those solutions sustainable and aligned with IFLA’s values?

Since then, each group has been hard at work interviewing key stakeholders, and reviewing comments received during the Global Vision process, the IFLA Membership Survey 2018, and in Professional Unit workshops.

When the Governing Board meets in December, they will bring together their findings so far.

Read more about IFLA’s Strategy 2019-24.

Governance Structure Survey

In October, we asked for your views about the performance of IFLA’s current governance structure. The results of this will be a key ingredient in these discussions.

The high relative response rate indicates the strong level of engagement in IFLA’s future.

We received responses from 269 members of IFLA’s professional units (a 33% response rate), with an average of 10 years of involvement, and 173 IFLA members who are not members of a professional units (12.7% response rate), with an average of 12 years of involvement.

The survey results provided the following highlights:

  • IFLA’s Members appreciated that IFLA’s governance structure allows many opportunities for involvement in leadership and that it generally reflects the breadth and diversity of the library field.
  • IFLA’s Members were in agreement that any changes proposed to the governance structure must be financially sustainable, provide for organisational stability, address regional representation, open doors for participation and inclusion more broadly, and allow new leaders to step forwards.
  • In addition to issues of structure, IFLA’s Members also saw transparency, communication, and collaboration as important.

Next Steps

Based on the consideration of the results of the Member survey, as well as the results of their work to date, IFLA’s Governing Board will work to define concrete proposals for change.

They will meet in person again in April 2020, in order to take the next steps towards a final proposal to present to the General Assembly in August 2020.

Throughout this time, we will be providing updates, and further opportunities to provide your input.