Embedding risk management

World Vision’s focus in 2014 has been on embedding risk management globally – making it part of normal business – in all regions and offices across the World Vision International Partnership.

All seven regions appointed the senior director of operations as the regional risk management champion, established risk management committees comprising senior management, and completed an introductory enterprise risk management (ERM) workshop. These regional risk committees provide oversight to the ERM process and support in rolling out basic risk management practices to the national offices. In some offices the local internal auditors used their risk-based auditing tools – the Ministry-Wide Risk Assessment Plans (MWRAP) templates – as a means of training staff on risk management and on how to complete risk registers.

Risk training to date has been primarily internal and via WebEx. However, the need for more face-to-face professional training is now recognised as necessary, particularly since the majority of staff are appointed only part-time as risk primes but do other jobs.

By the end of 2014, the larger support offices (US, Canada, Australia, UK, Germany, Taiwan, Korea and Hong Kong) and VisionFund had their own board-approved ERM policies in place. These offices are still at various levels of risk management maturity, often influenced by the existence, or not, of local regulatory requirements. The majority of offices report their top risks to their senior management regularly and to their boards twice a year.

Integration of incident management processes

Significant progress has been made in integrating the various manual incident management processes within WV. An integrated process and system has been implemented in the seven regional offices and the Global Centre which enables the management of incidents across several functional areas – Security, Fleet Management, People and Culture, Staff Care, Finance, and Child Protection. Other areas that have been identified to use the system are VisionFund, Communications and Global Internal Audit.

The system also provides valuable reports on the numbers and types of actual incidents. These are included in risk registers and support management of risk.