A programme for Templars · Developed by RDF Strategies
The Human Capital and Governance Framework is a structured, Africa-led programme that helps organisations understand how they actually work in practice, and build the systems that allow performance, progression, and accountability to function consistently for everyone inside them.
The framework at a glance
Designed for African workplaces, the HCGF helps participants look beyond the organogram to understand the informal relationships, assumptions, and decision patterns that shape everyday experience and career progression.
The programme moves from diagnosis to practical design, strengthening the systems that support clearer reporting, fairer recognition, more consistent progression, and better decision-making.
HCGF focuses on the routines, review practices, and leadership disciplines that allow improvement to hold beyond individual champions, leadership transitions, and organisational growth.
The Programme
The course moves from diagnosis to design to institutionalisation. Each level builds on the last. Each ends with a structured brief you can apply immediately to your own context.
Every organisation runs on a mix of formal systems and informal practice: relationships, hierarchy, unwritten rules, and the realities that sit beneath the org chart. Level One gives you the tools to see both layers, and to understand how informal dynamics create risk even when no one intends them to.
A sharper read of how your organisation actually works, and why the gap between formal structure and lived experience matters for everyone inside it.
Once the informal architecture is visible, the work is redesign. Level Two equips you to strengthen the systems that govern decisions, progression, recognition, and support so they hold under real-world pressure.
Practical frameworks for improving the structures that shape how people are developed, recognised, and held accountable – and the tools to identify where those structures are working and where they are not.
Systems are most vulnerable during leadership transitions, rapid growth, and periods of pressure. Level Three focuses on building governance that is durable by design.
The practices, review processes, and governance disciplines that allow an organisation to improve its own standards, consistently.
How it's delivered
Each level is delivered through five guided missions plus an introduction and close, with embedded diagnostics so reflection is built into the learning process.
Five guided missions, plus an introduction and close, per level.
About the Programme
The HCGF was developed by RDF Strategies, drawing on the research foundation established by African Women on Board.
An organisational reputation design firm headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria, working with clients across Africa and globally. RDF's work spans stakeholder engagement, strategic and political communication, government relations, investor communication, development research, and market intelligence. RDF designs the systems, narratives, and stakeholder experiences that build lasting institutional trust, credibility, and influence. The HCGF is the expression of that work applied to human capital governance – bringing the same rigour to how organisations manage decisions, accountability, and people.
rdfstrategies.com
A non-profit organisation dedicated to propelling African women and girls into leadership roles now and in the future. Working at the intersection of the private and development sectors, AWB uses its research and convening power to engage stakeholders on governance, gender equity, social mobility, and institutional performance. Its multi-year research into organisational systems, leadership accountability, and structural risk across African institutions forms the evidence base from which the HCGF was developed.
www.africanwomenonboard.orgThe Network