Governance Learning Guide

This Learning Guide was published by Plan to help improve understanding of governance with children and young people, and how to put it into practice in projects. It provides an overview of key concepts, approaches, and some experiences from Plan’s current governance work, and explores how some of Plan’s programmes have used a governance approach in their work, and how they have applied governance tools and approaches. It also gives readers the opportunity to reflect on what they have learnt and to explore how they might strengthen their own governance work with children and young people.
The guide is designed for use by programme staff who would like to deepen their understanding of what governance is and how they can bring a governance approach to their work, irrespective of their thematic focus. Non-programme staff can also benefit from the guide as it provides an introduction to key governance concepts and practical governance work.
The learning guide consists of six sections:

• Section 1: How to use this learning guide - It explains the content of the different sections and highlights the linkages to processes in Plan. This section also outlines briefly the work of Plan UK’s Governance programme out of which practical examples used in this guide originated.
• Section 2: Governance concepts and approaches for working with children and young people - This section seeks to build knowledge of key concepts, processes and frameworks that underpin governance work. In particular, it focuses on Plan’s main strategies for engaging in governance with young people. Section 2 also sets out the governance learning framework which is used throughout the rest of the guide as a synthesis of key governance concepts and approaches.
• Section 3: Governance in practice: real-life scenarios - It is comprised of four real-life scenarios taken from Plan projects. Each of these scenarios shows how a specific governance concept or approach was used in different geographic contexts and in different sectors. These scenarios are designed to show what worked well, the challenges faced, and lessons learnt.
• Section 4: Governance and your programme - It provides a number of interactive activities which can be done individually or as part of a team to facilitate reflection and learning. Section 4 also has a strong focus on programming with a governance perspective and uses the experiences of Plan Malawi to think through each stage of the programme cycle.
• Section 5: Resources - This section provides a list of key resources which are drawn from Plan and from other organisations. Using these resources will help to support continued learning, programming and governance work with children and young people, duty-bearers, and other actors.
• Section 6: Bibliography - This section lists the wide range of sources referenced throughout the guide.