Planning and Managing Leadership Transitions among CSOs in West Africa
Succession planning is not a common practice in civil society organisations (CSOs). The objectives of this publication are to both make a case for the importance of succession planning and to use the experiences of CSOs to provide realistic suggestions on how CSOs can execute a smooth succession from one leader to the next at all levels within the organisation. Our analysis focuses on succession planning processes and practices.
Most CSOs in West Africa, do not have a clear and written succession plan policy. For some organisations that show a semblance of having succession plans, these plans are often in the form of tacit knowledge – with the leader, founder or director bearing in mind her/his successor. Yet, this is neither documented, nor a plan put in place to nurture the successor nor any concrete action plans in place to adequately prepare the successor to smoothly take office.
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