About Us
Human Governance Institute Inc. (HGII)
The concept of Human Governance (HG) was first introduced in 2007 by Aziuddin Ahmad and Arfah Salleh through their monograph entitled "Soulful Stewardship". In 2008 their seminal work “Human Governance: A Paradigm Shift in Governing Corporation”, a book that questions the thought behind today's practices of approaching human behavior in corporations through only an external rule-based regime was published by MPH Publishing.
Passionate to take HG beyond the corporate world to everyday living and in all work settings, the late Prof. Dr Arfah Salleh established the Human Governance Institute (HGII) in 2016 as the official vehicle championing HG cause. Today, HGII remain an entity that is solely dedicated to championing HG and safeguarding its meaning in its pristine essence.
As testimony to the recognition of her work, Prof. Dr. Arfah Salleh, together with the co-concept developer of HG Dato’ Dr. Aziuddin Ahmad, were invited by the National Centre for Governance, Integrity and Anti Corruption (GIACC), Prime Minister’s Department to provide input for the formation of the National Anti Corruption Plan (NACP) 2019 - 2023. From this event in 2018, it went on to a presentation by Prof. Dr. Arfah to the Special Cabinet Committee on Corruption (JKKMAR) chaired by the then Prime Minister, where Prof. Dr. Arfah conveyed the compelling truth that corruption is not an object but a human issue, therefore a human centred approach need to be incorporated in addition to law and enforcement. As a result, JKKMAR made the policy decision to include Human Governance in the strategies or education and continuing professional development involving 14 initiatives. Download NACP here, This is subsequently followed by National Anti Corruption Strategies (NACS) 2024-2028. Download NACS here.
Corruption happens when there is the failure in the governing of oneself. At HGII, we view governance as being contingent upon the nature of human. For some who prefers to accept the legal person-human, i.e. corporations as being human, then corporate governance (CG) is sufficient. But for those who wish to view human as the "natural" human, surely CG is inadequate for it does not address the human dimension. Even for the natural human worldview, the model of nature of human (NoH) being only physical material will lead to a different governance mode compared to human viewed as having at once, both a spiritual non-physical, non-material and physical material components.
At HGII, our aim is to promote the imperatives of Human Governance as a pathway to live out the innate nature of human - human as consituted out of both the physical and spiritual realms. We believe that HG is a birthright of all individuals because it helps seek answer(s) to what it means to be human. Because organizations are human-based endeavors, HGII also makes it her business to facilitate the implementation of HG among those given the trust to run and manage organizations including higher institutions to deep-dive within their internal selves to better conduct themselves. In other words, HG is a pathway to reclaiming the centrality of human in governing organizations and institutions.