Governance as strategy

How an organisation's internal capacity shapes its ability to influence and engage externally

Organisation’s are under increasing pressure to influence policy and practice. But an organisation’s internal structures and dynamics shapes what it can achieve externally. At the same time, the forces an organisation is subject to, in its external context, inevitably shape its internal dynamics. This is particularly so when it comes to large international organisations that seek to influence change in complex policy spaces. Here, policy and practice emerge from the interweaving of intention and action amongst a multitude of actors operating within specific places and spaces, shaped by politics and power - creating a complex ‘entanglement.’

This article explores how the governance structures, leadership dynamics, and ways of working within one international organisation affect its ability to influence this complex entanglement, specifically in international environmental policy. In turn, it examines how, at the same time, the political and funding context in which it operates force it to adapt its governance and internal ways of working.

An inside-out approach

This international organisation is a complex entity – thousands of member organisations - both state and non-state, groups of experts as well as regional and centralised offices. The organisation’s policy work gains legitimacy from its members, who propose and vote on resolutions. These resolutions guide its influencing efforts, ensuring that the positions it takes on issues like marine conservation or sustainable agriculture have broad internal backing.

This strengthens the organisation’s credibility, ensuring it speaks with collective authority rather than as just another actor pushing its own agenda. But it is also a constraint. Reaching a common position among diverse members, could be bureaucratically cumbersome.

Once a position is agreed, it is often broad enough to leave significant room for interpretation by those leading the charge in specific negotiations. As such specific policy positions may be consulted on, both up the hierarchy and across and beyond the organisation.

While consultation is often a requirement, particularly among senior managers, it also serves practical purposes. It can enhance legitimacy (a normative perspective), help achieve strategic objectives (an instrumental perspective), and lead to better outcomes (a substantive perspective). Yet, the need to consult widely has sometimes hindered the organisation’s ability to respond quickly to policy windows.

This governance model was put to the test in shaping the High Seas Treaty, a legally binding agreement to protect marine life in international waters. The treaty was more than 20 years in the making, involving complex negotiations at the United Nations (UN).

The organisation’s ability to influence the process depended on its governance model: its resolutions process provided legitimacy, its groups of experts supplied technical knowledge, and its decentralised structure allowed key individuals to engage strategically with policymakers.

The lengthy negotiation process required an organisational culture focused not just on quick wins but on long-term engagement. Staff and experts needed both resilience and sustained commitment to remain engaged in a process that spanned decades.

Working with others

Internal tensions emerged as not all its members supported the policy teams more ambitious suggestions, forcing the organisation’s delegation to tread carefully. Unlike advocacy groups that could take more combative stances, this organisation had to balance the interests of its government members with those of its more activist-oriented constituencies. As a result, it largely adopted an "inside track" approach, building relationships with negotiators, providing technical expertise, and working through informal diplomatic channels rather than public campaigns.

Operating within formal and informal networks was crucial, reinforcing collective efforts. However, differences within these networks sometimes created tensions, requiring time and effort to maintain cohesion. For example, as part of a coalition advocating for stronger ocean protections, the organisation faced a challenge when some coalition leaders pushed for a public “name and shame” campaign against obstructive countries, an approach that clashed with its diplomatic strategy and nearly caused a split.

Policy teams and their dynamics

Effective policy engagement requires identifying and working with influential individuals and collectives embedded in the complex landscape from which policy emerges. This is a demanding, labour-intensive process requiring a strategic approach that presents evidence in ways that resonate with decision-makers. Those seeking to lead policy change must be well-equipped to navigate this landscape effectively.

In this example, leadership in policy work was concentrated in a small group of committed individuals, typically centred around a ‘policy entrepreneur’: someone skilled not only in the subject matter but also in navigating political and institutional landscapes. They were persuasive storytellers, effective networkers, and adept strategists - able to identify opportunities, secure funding, and package policy work into discrete, actionable projects.

Ensuring policy teams featured a range of perspectives, experiences, and approaches helped policy work to be more creative, effective, and joined-up. Leaders had the space to bring others into the fold based on a combination of personal connections, their skills and expertise, interest in the topic and capacity to have their time paid for.

But members of policy teams (who were often experts) weren’t only there due to their commitment to conservation and environmental protection. They were motivated by the pursuit of knowledge in their areas of expertise. Therefore, access to policy processes was crucial, as was the recognition of their contributions - whether through academic credit, authorship of papers, acknowledgements, or invitations to provide oral testimony at key meetings.

Working across disciplines, organisations and policy areas presented challenges. Experts with different disciplinary backgrounds, specialisms, and identities could easily end up working in silos. Overcoming this required sustained engagement, frequent meetings, and trust-building. In this case, repeated interactions helped foster a shared identity and a more collaborative working culture.

Nevertheless, policy influencers, particularly those engaged in negotiations, were mainly rooted in the physical sciences, predominantly white and based in the Global North. This was largely due to a combination of historical factors: greater availability of funding, proximity to UN institutions, and established expertise in legal and scientific frameworks relevant to environmental governance.

Shifting narratives

The consequence? The influencing narrative was initially framed largely as a conservation issue, with marine protected areas as the primary solution. This perspective resonated well in scientific and policy circles but had limitations in political negotiations. For many governments in the Global South, especially small island states, the high seas were not just an ecological issue but an economic and developmental one. The stakes were about survival, livelihoods, and climate resilience, not just biodiversity protection.

Just as internal governance shapes external influence, the external policy environment feeds back into how an organisation is governed. As the UN process reached a climax, recognising that a purely ecological argument was insufficient to build consensus, the strategy shifted towards a more developmental and human-centred narrative. A film was commissioned featuring voices from particular nation states in the Global South, highlighting how their economies and cultures depended on the high seas. Indigenous participation in negotiations was also supported, helping to reframe the treaty beyond conservation towards global equity and sustainability.

The shift in strategy coincided with the inclusion of a legal expert and a youth delegate from an affected region, an important, albeit late, step. While initially met with some resistance, their presence enhanced the organisation’s credibility with negotiators from small island states. It also highlighted that knowledge, a crucial resource for both influencers and policymakers, exists in multiple forms: ranging from expert analysis and stakeholder perspectives to statistical data and implementation experience. Different stages of the policy process require different types of knowledge, shaping the composition and expertise of the policy team.

Political leadership, support, communications and identity

Policy teams often comprise people located in different parts of the organisation – expert groups who work at a distance, regional offices as well as headquarters. Operating successfully means finding the right balance between the degree of control headquarters needs to retain and the autonomy required by those at the ‘coalface’. This changes as policy processes evolve.

In this example, as negotiations intensified and demanded more attention, headquarters took a more active leadership role, formalising management structures, allocating resources, and stepping up coordination efforts. Given the higher intensity of work, it needed to be well managed and supported, a process which should also help participants to learn from experience and continuously improve. The centre leaning in, created tensions but were worked through over time.

With (corporate) pressure to be more visible and take credit for contributing to the treaty as the process drew to a close, the organisation sought to complement its insider approach with an outsider approach, by engaging the media with the help of a communications strategy. However, translating the depth and breadth of the work being discussed by the organisation’s delegation into succinct messages which could be digested by non-specialists was a challenge – this required the talents of skilled communication and engagement specialists to support experts translate complex information into compelling narratives.

Senior leaders may seem peripheral to policy processes, but in international negotiations, political engagement is as crucial as technical expertise. Senior leaders can play an important role in shaping and enhancing their organisation’s policy work. In this example, they represented the organisation at high level meetings, cultivated and strengthened relationships with key actors, mobilised resources (described below) and fostered team development and growth, by e.g. distributing leadership and developing capabilities.

In addition, a robust collective identity can help an organisation foster a shared purpose, promote collaboration, instil a sense of belonging as well as a culture of learning. In this example, expert groups had their own distinct branding, protocols and networks, while members of policy teams often had multiple other identities in addition to representing their expert group. This complicated picture made working across the organisation in pursuit of shared objectives somewhat challenging.

Mobilising funding

As mentioned above, funding played a critical role in supporting policy influencing efforts. Much of the organisation’s policy work had initially been driven by voluntary contributions from experts - often academics who could fund their time through university affiliations (which tended to favour experts in the Global North). But as the process moved into high-stakes intergovernmental negotiations, reliance on voluntary contributions became a limitation. Dedicated time and consistent funding were needed, requiring the organisation to tap into new sources: governments, philanthropies, and institutional partners.

Mobilising funding within this context required skills and experience to identify and exploit opportunities within various structures while keeping in sight key policy objectives. Personal connections with funders were key while senior managers were on occasion able to use their ties with their home country government to access funding. However, funders were often hesitant to back policy-influencing work that did not directly serve their interests, with varying degrees of flexibility in how funds could be used.

Securing a steady funding stream required sustained relationship-building with funders and collaborators, writing proposals, delivering outputs (some of which fell outside core policy goals), and meeting administrative demands. This risked diverting the organisation’s focus from strategic priorities, potentially fragmenting its policy work. Additionally, funding sources sometimes came from parties directly involved in policy negotiations, raising conflicts of interest that needed careful management.

In extreme cases, the pressure to secure ongoing projects could push the organisation toward a consultancy model - prioritising funding over high-quality policy work, ultimately affecting its credibility. A lack of funding, on the other hand, often meant reliance on voluntary efforts or the abandonment of potentially influential activities.

Conclusion

Ultimately, how an organisation governs itself internally shapes what it can do in the world. And the world, in turn, shapes how an organisation must govern itself. In the case of this international organisation, its engagement with the High Seas Treaty reveals both the power and the constraints of its governance. For any organisation working to influence policy and practice, the lesson is clear: governance isn’t just about internal rules and processes, it’s about positioning, influence, and strategy. So, the next time you think about how to influence the external world, ask yourself: how does your internal world need to shift to make that possible?