Stichting IFLA Global Libraries Foundation

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Policy Plan 2026

This policy plan reflects the year 2026. In addition to this policy plan, the articles of organisation are available for public consultation.

Objective

The object of the foundation, which is exclusively charitable and educational, is to strengthen the library field and to empower public libraries to improve people’s lives and support the growth of sustainable societies. This objective will be pursued by, inter alia:

  1. Research and Innovation: funding projects and research on public access to information and the internet, trends that affect how libraries and the library field serve their communities, and ways to foster innovation;
  2. Training and leadership: supporting efforts to identify strong library leaders and equipping them to create high-impact libraries;
  3. Delivery: supporting efforts to create library programs and services that can be replicated on a broad scale and customised for different settings;
  4. Impact, Advocacy, and Policy: working to ensure adequate resources and public policy support for libraries and helping public libraries, library staff, and the library field measure the impact of public access in libraries and strengthen their advocacy skills and all other activities that are beneficial to achieving the object mentioned above or are related thereto.

Activities 2026

We have as an overall goal to see libraries delivering meaningful impact in support of the SDGs. We believe that to do this, we need to ensure the ongoing strength of the library field, and in particular to strengthen partnerships between libraries and other actors as defined in the Global Vision.

SIGL´s project funding aim to build capacity of the library field at all levels.

In 2026 we will concentrate our activities and project funding on:

  1. Stronger Regional Library Fields
    Support the emergence of regional and national structures and systems that empower library fields to build effective partnerships and seek resources for sustainable change that benefit the communities they serve.
  2. Building capacity for impact
    Ensure library fields benefit from a critical mass of people equipped with the skills necessary for effective partnership building, grant proposal development, project design, delivery, evaluation, and sustainable impact.
  3. Building the Advocacy Case
    Support the global library field to engage in strategic partnership and advocacy work to ensure libraries are included in national and international culture and development policies which should in turn lead to increased influence and potential funding opportunities for the global library field.
  4. Leaders and Trends
    Engaging high-potential leaders and systematically integrating futures thinking – inspired by the 2024 Trend Report – into planning, action and development, building on the results of research to develop tools to support impactful leadership programming throughout the field.
  5. Connecting the Field
    Provide the space, opportunities and tools for library and information workers globally to meet, exchange, and learn from each other.

The activities of the SIGL Board will focus their activities that access to information, culture and reading are seen as key pillars for democracy and wellbeing of societies in international and national development plans – and have to be achieved and defended with the major contribution of libraries.

The SIGL Board will be responsive to the global library field.

Income

The assets of the SIGL will mainly consist of the donations it will receive from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a foundation based in the United States of America. Other organisations and/or individuals might also donate to SIGL as well. In principle, all received donations are directly used to promote and support the objectives of the SIGL. However, the SIGL can designate funds when the foundation decides to support long-term projects which need financial support over several years. Furthermore, the foundation could designate funds to ensure its long-term sustainability.

Financial Policy

The SIGL Board will be managing the funds and supervise expenditures of grants.

The Stichting Board is under obligation to annually, within six months after the end of the financial year, record and draw up on paper the foundation’s balance sheet and statement of income and expenditure. Before adopting the balance sheet and the statement of income and expenditure, the Stichting Board shall designate a registered accountant or accountant-administrative consultant in the meaning of Section 393 of Book 2 of the Dutch Civil Code to audit these documents. This expert shall report the findings of his audit to the Stichting Board and will present the outcome of his audit in a statement on the faithfulness of the documents referred to in the previous sentence.

Payment of the Board

The board of the Stichting SIGL does not receive any remuneration for their services as board member of the board. A reimbursement of expenses is possible.