Research question
Program knowledge includes documents, relationships and practical experience. Institutional continuity depends on deciding which records are retained, who maintains them and who can interpret them.
Source and findings
The JIU review describes a mismatch between existing assurance information and additional donor requests. Its findings concern governance and access to information as well as reporting effort. UN Joint Inspection Unit (2025), JIU/REP/2025/3
Interpretation
Shared knowledge requires clear custodianship, access rules and revision history. Continuity cannot depend solely on the availability of individual staff.
Stewardship rather than accumulation
Knowledge stewardship includes deciding which materials have continuing value, identifying a responsible custodian and retaining enough context for a new reader. A folder containing many documents may still leave uncertainty about which version was used or who interpreted a finding. Records of disagreement can be as important as the final agreed conclusion.
Access also has limits. Beneficiary information, sensitive partner communications and personnel records should not be treated as unrestricted institutional knowledge. A continuity plan needs to distinguish what can be shared from what requires controlled access. These governance considerations are proposed implications for practice. They should be examined alongside staff interviews and observed handover practices before concluding that a particular organisation has an institutional-memory problem.
Limits of the evidence
Applying these findings to internal knowledge stewardship is an editorial inference, not a measured effect of a particular archive.