WLO’s Trustees form the Council, which is the governing body of WLO, and meets two times a year. Trustees, who are all unpaid volunteers, are responsible for everything WLO does.

These responsibilities are:

• to ensure that WLO abides by its charitable aims and constitution, and operates within the law;
• to be ultimately accountable for the overall management of WLO;
• to ensure that income and assets are used to help WLO’s beneficiaries, and that its finances are properly and effectively managed and monitored;
• to set policy and objectives, and to ensure the monitoring of their implementation and evaluation of the results;
• topreserve WLO’s good name and reputation.

The Council consists of 10 members. Trustees serve on the Council for three years with the possibility of a second consecutive three-year term of office, extendable up to nine years in the case of Honorary Officers. There are limited Life Time members.

The Executive Director of WLO is the Chief Executive of the organization, and is responsible to Trustees for the management of WLO. Reporting to the Executive Director are the six Directors, each responsible for one of the six Divisions. The Executive Director is also member of the board of trusties.

1. The Marketing Division is responsible for fundraising, communications, campaigns, and work to raise awareness of development issues in Pakistan, and for WLO’s work in other parts of the world.
2. The International Divisionis responsible for developing and implementing WLO’s program in over 5countries including humanitarian response, long-term development work, linkages and global campaigning.
3. The Monitoring & Evaluation Divisionis responsible for processing feedback, monitoring and evaluation of all projects, services and decisions to maintain total quality.
4. The Finance and Information Systems Divisionis responsible for organization-wide finance and information systems matters, such as standards, systems, and reporting.
5. The Corporate Human Resources (CHR) Divisionleads work with Human Resources teams in all Divisions on delivering WLO’s HR strategies. CHR has specific responsibilities for employee relations, compensation and benefits, human resources management information, and corporate learning and development.
6. The Campaigns and Policy Divisionpromotes lasting change in policy, practice, ideas, beliefs and behavior through advocacy and campaigning, as well as formal education, and has a strong focus on addressing gender inequality.

The Association can have up to 31 members. It is made up of all the current Trustees, plus around 21other members. The Association has powers to remove and replace Trustees in the event of a major failure or default on the part of Council. The Association meets once in a year and coordinates their meeting with the second meeting of the Council of the Trustees.

WLO’s system of governance was revised following a Strategic Review. Part of the changes included the move to a smaller governing body of 10 Trustees as described above. The Strategic Review concluded that a smaller Council should be enabled to listen to and be influenced by the views of its stakeholders. Two regular mechanisms which support this accountability are the Assembly and the Stakeholder Survey.

The aim of the Assembly is to strengthen WLO’s accountability by facilitating informed debate and exchange of views on issues of strategic or corporate importance between different stakeholders. At the event itself around 180 participants drawn from different stakeholder groups (e.g. overseas/Pakistan partner organizations, volunteers, staff, campaigners and all of WLO’s Council, Association and Corporate Management Team) meet to debate and discuss key issues. The Assembly has no decision-making powers, but enables decision-makers to hear a wider range of views on policy issues.

The WLO Stakeholder Survey gathers views from different groups of stakeholders (internationally and within Pakistan) on WLO’s performance – both what the organization does and the way that it works. Like the Assembly it is a key mechanism which supports WLO’s accountability. The findings of the survey are reported to the WLO’s Assembly and are made available publicly through the WLO’s website. This is one of the most important tools in insuring continuous quality performance of the organization and service to our cause. We continuously strive for constructive reviews and feed back from our volunteers, supporters, staff and partners all over the globe.

There are approximately 525 WLO’s volunteers in Pakistan, in roles throughout the organization. About 7 staff members are employed by WLO in Pakistan. Of this number, 5 staff and volunteers are based at Vehari.