sRESH Working Group on Whole of Government (WoG) Approaches and Inter-Ministry Coordination (IC)
This page describes the activities of an ad-hoc working group promoting Whole of Government (WoG) approaches and strengthening Inter-Ministry Coordination (IC). The group was started as a result of the 2020 Global Education Monitoring Report on Inclusion. A FRESH webinar on 29 September 2020 learned about that report as well as different intersectoral policy-program coordination frameworks (IPPCFs) such as Positive Behavioural Interventions & Supports (PBIS) and comprehensive approaches to promote integration of students with disabilities. The proponents of several other frameworks were approached to determine their interest in sharing their strategies and evidence of impact. Many of the proponents did agree to share their work in a series of webinars. The goal of the group activities is to support countries by curating resources as well as identifying and responding to research and knowledge development needs.
As part of this process and in preparation for a submission to the UN Transforming Education Summit, FRESH identified a list of of over 40 Intersectoral Policy-Program Coordination Frameworks (IPPFCs) which promote the inclusion and equity goals of SDG 4 (education). These include broad Multi-Component Approaches (MCAs) partnering education with other sectors such as health (Health Promoting Schools), environment (Education for Sustainable Development) and early childhood education (Global Partnership on ECE). As well, within and sometimes independent of these sector-wide approaches, Multi-Intervention Programs (MIPs) are developed and implemented. Examples of these include topics such as bullying, substance abuse and many more,
Strengthening Inter-Ministry Coordination
Our work on intersectoral policy-program coordination frameworks (IPPCFs) delved deeper to examine the system/organizational capacities needed to sustain these approaches and programs in the long term. (Research has shown that very few, if any of these school-level strategies are sustained in their entirety after the external funding or crisis has passed.) These ministry and agency level capacities needed to sustain intersectoral coordination include:
The ISHN/FRESH summary identified and discussed several better practices of building, implementing aand sustaining IPPFCs which overlap with the list of organizational/systems capacities noted above. That discussion included national or international examples on these better practices promoting intersectoral coordination using the school as a hub:
We argue that school systems will not be able to address all of the many health, social, environmental and other issues unless other ministries contribute staffing and funding to school-based and school-linked programs. The other ministries must do this through their own structures which coordinate their interventions about their issues aimed at children and adolescents. (e.g. a healthy schools structure/team as part of their health promotion and child/adolescent divisions, a safe schools unit in law enforcement ministries as part of their youth development and community policing, caring schools in child protection strategies within social services ministries etc.)
It will not be possible for other ministries to do this unless they are funded and mandated to do so by whole of government approaches derived from a whole child philosophy. The joint statement on rebuilding, renewing and transforming school and other systems developed by several global organizations representing teachers, principals, school district administrators, senior school leaders, counselors, psychologists, nurses, education deans and others recommends that instead of asking finance ministries to provide more funds to education ministries (thereby competing directly with other ministries for scarce resources) we should argue for more funds going to other ministries so that they can strengthen their school-based and school-linked programs. These educator organizations will be approaching UN agencies and funders with this argument in the fall or 2023.
Whole of Government Approaches, Practices, Policies and Strategies
This Working Group proposes steps that can build on the extensive evidence and experience that has created many different successful Intersectoral Policy Coordination Frameworks (IPPCFs) as part of a broader initiative to restructure or rewire school and other systems using “whole of government” (inter-ministry) approaches and strategies.
The need for re-orienting our approaches to intersectoral coordination has been best articulated by the Education Commission (now based at the Education Development Center) and the Dubai Foundation in their report Rewiring Education. It states:
Driving and sustaining collaborative action requires new incentive structures. To that end, we recommend that governments, in partnership with international and local actors:
• Embed education in all relevant sections of national development plans and other sector strategies, complemented by integrated strategic planning and mutual accountability frameworks that can align incentives and actions of leaders at all levels. Similarly ensure that education is considered as a concrete solution in global action toward the SDGs.
• Embrace multisectoral financing approaches and tailor financing strategies to differentiated needs and contexts…. and integrated national strategies[i]
• Develop delivery-focused implementation approaches, underpinned by strong data systems, to help connect actions within and across line ministries for achieving the goals of development and sector
Several other global and UN initiatives have recently called for action to build whole of government (WoG) approaches through schools.
A Whole of Government approach (across and within ministries) and several systems changes are required to align, coordinate and sustain several IPPCF frameworks. (Note that the WoG approaches are aimed at the education and development of the whole child and not at at any specific program or IPPCF framework.) These include an over-arching policy on child & adolescent development, laws and regulations on the mandates of several ministries on working with and within schools, the active support of first ministers, establishing inter-ministry coordination mechanisms, comprehensive agreements between ministries, jointly named inter-ministry coordinators, joint budgeting, joint sector reviews, shared accountability systems and other actions. Driving and sustaining collaborative action requires new incentive structures and government partnership with international and local actors to embed education in all relevant sections of national development plans and other sector strategies, integrated strategic planning and mutual accountability frameworks that can align incentives and actions of leaders at all level, embracing multi-sectoral financing approaches and tailor financing strategies to differentiated needs and contexts, and delivery-focused implementation approaches, underpinned by strong data systems, to help connect actions within and across line ministries for achieving the goals of education and child/youth development
Come back to this web page for updates on the WG activities promoting Whole of Government apprpaches and Inter-Ministry Coordination.
This page describes the activities of an ad-hoc working group promoting Whole of Government (WoG) approaches and strengthening Inter-Ministry Coordination (IC). The group was started as a result of the 2020 Global Education Monitoring Report on Inclusion. A FRESH webinar on 29 September 2020 learned about that report as well as different intersectoral policy-program coordination frameworks (IPPCFs) such as Positive Behavioural Interventions & Supports (PBIS) and comprehensive approaches to promote integration of students with disabilities. The proponents of several other frameworks were approached to determine their interest in sharing their strategies and evidence of impact. Many of the proponents did agree to share their work in a series of webinars. The goal of the group activities is to support countries by curating resources as well as identifying and responding to research and knowledge development needs.
As part of this process and in preparation for a submission to the UN Transforming Education Summit, FRESH identified a list of of over 40 Intersectoral Policy-Program Coordination Frameworks (IPPFCs) which promote the inclusion and equity goals of SDG 4 (education). These include broad Multi-Component Approaches (MCAs) partnering education with other sectors such as health (Health Promoting Schools), environment (Education for Sustainable Development) and early childhood education (Global Partnership on ECE). As well, within and sometimes independent of these sector-wide approaches, Multi-Intervention Programs (MIPs) are developed and implemented. Examples of these include topics such as bullying, substance abuse and many more,
Strengthening Inter-Ministry Coordination
Our work on intersectoral policy-program coordination frameworks (IPPCFs) delved deeper to examine the system/organizational capacities needed to sustain these approaches and programs in the long term. (Research has shown that very few, if any of these school-level strategies are sustained in their entirety after the external funding or crisis has passed.) These ministry and agency level capacities needed to sustain intersectoral coordination include:
- The IPPCF framework goes beyond adopting a Ministry statement, declaration or guidance document (which have no required actions, reporting, staffing, funding or procedures) to formally approving Ministry macro-policies or law/regulations that require that components or interventions be coordinated and describes the activities, staffing, funding and/or reporting procedures in this MCA or MIP
- The MCA or MIP is aligned or coordinated with other MCAs or MIPs through assigned coordinators, reporting structures, joint budgeting, and other activities
- Actions taken within this MCA or MIP also serve to strengthen the core components common to all MCAs and MIPs such as a core health/life skills education program, or integrated student services, or a healthy physical and social environment in and near schools
- Ministry has a written, current action plan/strategy on this MCA or MIP with actions, dates, responsibilities
- There is a current inter-ministry agreement on this MCA or MIP
- There is an active inter-ministry committee on this MCA or MIP
- There is at least one coordinator assigned full or part time on this MCA or MIP within at least one ministry
- The role and responsibilities of each relevant ministry has been described for this MCA or MIP
- The role and responsibilities of local agencies of each relevant ministry on this MCA or MIP has been described & funded for this MCA or MIP
- The role and responsibilities of local schools in implementing this MCA or MIP has been described and has been encouraged by actions such as school recognition/small incentive project funding, school self-assessment tools, or school award/accreditation programs
- The role of front-line staff of each relevant ministry/sector (school nurses, psychologists, resource officers, social workers etc.)has been described and funded for this MCA or MIP
- The education ministry and other partner ministries have a specific budget line/section named for this MCA or MIP
- There is an administrative unit or division within the education and/or another ministry that is responsible for leading & coordinating this MCA or MIP.
- There is a broad-based coalition of groups at the national/state level advocating and assisting in the implementation of this MCA or MIP
- There are several strategies being used to implement, maintain, scale up and sustain the MCA or MIP. These include the use of evidence-based situation analysis tools, consultations with stakeholders, active involvement of senior ministry leaders, consultations with middle managers, mentoring and communities of practice and local university-based research centres.
- There are several stipulated procedures or practices as well as required reporting times for the monitoring, reporting and evaluating progress in implementing this MCA or MIP. These can include accreditation programs, regular annual and other reports, regular policy & program surveys, analysis of policy, curriculum and guidance documents, self-assessment tools and school recognition programs and others
- The data, reports from these monitoring, reporting & evaluating procedures are used/fed into stipulated systems improvement planning processes for each of the relevant ministries (eg school improvement planning programs in education) and/or joint sector reviews.
- There is a written plan for building the system and organizational capacities needed for this MCA or MIP (adequate funding, adequate staffing, coordinated policy, senior leader support, ongoing knowledge development & exchange, workforce development, sustainability planning, strategic issue management)
- There is a specific, written education ministry strategy for integrating this MCA or MIP within the core mandates, concerns and constraints of the education system
- There is a specific, written education ministry strategy for using a systems-focused change strategy to sustain this MCA or MIP over the long term. These could include joint inter-ministry appointments of coordinators, joint preparation of budgets, separate web site or designated space on the ministry web site, regular section in ministry annual reports and more.
The ISHN/FRESH summary identified and discussed several better practices of building, implementing aand sustaining IPPFCs which overlap with the list of organizational/systems capacities noted above. That discussion included national or international examples on these better practices promoting intersectoral coordination using the school as a hub:
- Measuring & Monitoring the Capacities of IPPCFs
- Identifying the Priority Issues for School-Age Children to Select the Most Relevant IPPCFs
- Ensuring that IPPCFs Address a Learning-Relevant, Realistic & Related Cluster of Issues and Include Interventions that are Compatible and Synergistic
- Whole of Government (Inter-ministry) Policies & Action Plans on the Whole Child
- Formal Inter-Ministry Mechanisms to Support Coordination & Cooperation
- Comprehensive Inter-Ministry Agreements on Approaches & Programs
- Joint Sector Reviews to Improve the Implementation of IPPCFs
We argue that school systems will not be able to address all of the many health, social, environmental and other issues unless other ministries contribute staffing and funding to school-based and school-linked programs. The other ministries must do this through their own structures which coordinate their interventions about their issues aimed at children and adolescents. (e.g. a healthy schools structure/team as part of their health promotion and child/adolescent divisions, a safe schools unit in law enforcement ministries as part of their youth development and community policing, caring schools in child protection strategies within social services ministries etc.)
It will not be possible for other ministries to do this unless they are funded and mandated to do so by whole of government approaches derived from a whole child philosophy. The joint statement on rebuilding, renewing and transforming school and other systems developed by several global organizations representing teachers, principals, school district administrators, senior school leaders, counselors, psychologists, nurses, education deans and others recommends that instead of asking finance ministries to provide more funds to education ministries (thereby competing directly with other ministries for scarce resources) we should argue for more funds going to other ministries so that they can strengthen their school-based and school-linked programs. These educator organizations will be approaching UN agencies and funders with this argument in the fall or 2023.
Whole of Government Approaches, Practices, Policies and Strategies
This Working Group proposes steps that can build on the extensive evidence and experience that has created many different successful Intersectoral Policy Coordination Frameworks (IPPCFs) as part of a broader initiative to restructure or rewire school and other systems using “whole of government” (inter-ministry) approaches and strategies.
The need for re-orienting our approaches to intersectoral coordination has been best articulated by the Education Commission (now based at the Education Development Center) and the Dubai Foundation in their report Rewiring Education. It states:
Driving and sustaining collaborative action requires new incentive structures. To that end, we recommend that governments, in partnership with international and local actors:
• Embed education in all relevant sections of national development plans and other sector strategies, complemented by integrated strategic planning and mutual accountability frameworks that can align incentives and actions of leaders at all levels. Similarly ensure that education is considered as a concrete solution in global action toward the SDGs.
• Embrace multisectoral financing approaches and tailor financing strategies to differentiated needs and contexts…. and integrated national strategies[i]
• Develop delivery-focused implementation approaches, underpinned by strong data systems, to help connect actions within and across line ministries for achieving the goals of development and sector
Several other global and UN initiatives have recently called for action to build whole of government (WoG) approaches through schools.
- The 2022 UN Transforming Education Summit (TES) and the accompanying vision statement on by the UN Secretary-General for the Summit highlighted such WofG strategies. However, an analysis of country commitment statements from TES found that very few countries were making progress on such WofG approaches.
- The revised UNESCO "Recommendation" (policy framework for education systems and OECD Declaration on Building Equitable Societies Through Education call for transformation based on WoG approaches.
- Global educator organizations and NGO coalitions such as the FRESH Partnership have also advocated for Whole of Government approaches to strengthen the use of IPPCF frameworks.
A Whole of Government approach (across and within ministries) and several systems changes are required to align, coordinate and sustain several IPPCF frameworks. (Note that the WoG approaches are aimed at the education and development of the whole child and not at at any specific program or IPPCF framework.) These include an over-arching policy on child & adolescent development, laws and regulations on the mandates of several ministries on working with and within schools, the active support of first ministers, establishing inter-ministry coordination mechanisms, comprehensive agreements between ministries, jointly named inter-ministry coordinators, joint budgeting, joint sector reviews, shared accountability systems and other actions. Driving and sustaining collaborative action requires new incentive structures and government partnership with international and local actors to embed education in all relevant sections of national development plans and other sector strategies, integrated strategic planning and mutual accountability frameworks that can align incentives and actions of leaders at all level, embracing multi-sectoral financing approaches and tailor financing strategies to differentiated needs and contexts, and delivery-focused implementation approaches, underpinned by strong data systems, to help connect actions within and across line ministries for achieving the goals of education and child/youth development
Come back to this web page for updates on the WG activities promoting Whole of Government apprpaches and Inter-Ministry Coordination.