On the last Wednesday of every month, the RINGO Connect meeting holds a space for community solutioning. We invite participants to share a challenge and draw on the expertise and experience from within the group to address this issue.
At the February meeting, we built on some of our conversations at the recent RINGO event where we took stock of where we are as a sector and explored how we want to show up in 2026, grounded in the understanding that we are part of a collective movement to shift power. Many participants emphasised the importance of open, honest dialogue to co-create a new, more equitable system. The RINGO Connect meetings provide an opportunity to make connections and build relationships with actors who you may not usually get the chance to speak to or engage with. This is a space for you to meet your community of change makers and foster solidarity while exchanging ideas and learning from your peers. During Nana Afadzinu’s opening remarks, she shared a proverb highlighting the importance of maintaining connections: “When you take a burning coal out of the fire, it can go cold and die — we are keeping all the coals in the fire.”
Collective temperature check
Throughout 2026, we plan to run a quick poll and ask the same three questions about how you feel things are shifting across our sector at the beginning of every RINGO Connect meeting. Think of it as a collective temperature check. We hope to notice patterns over the year about whether hope is rising or falling; whether trust and solidarity are strengthening; and whether people are trying out new ways of working.
Thematic discussions
Participants chose to join discussions focussed on the following themes:
Funding and Resource Flows
This group explored how actors in the Global Majority could move away from fixating on individual funding and come together as a coalition or network (the human resources) to rally and seek resources through joint applications. We reflected that such an endeavour would require commitment of expertise and time from the individual organisations that want to collaborate; clear objectives of what they want to achieve; and should build on existing assets, skills and expertise. We also discussed how social enterprise could generate alternative income.
Conservation and Climate Justice
This group dove into a specific challenge around the lack of potable water for communities in a region where multinational organisations are present but this issue falls outside of their ‘project’. We discussed strategies that could be used to mobilise resources, including: leveraging social media; exploring alternative funding opportunities; and participating in training, such as Change the Game Academy. The group also discussed the deeper issue of a lack of political will around climate justice: how might we address the mindset of political leaders who are undermining climate issues and cutting funding?
Power and Voice
This group explored how actors can build a collective voice to influence change. Our conversations covered two main issues: how voices expressing solidarity for Palestine are routinely shut down; and how, despite initiatives like the Grand Bargain, commitments to shift power from North to South are falling way behind schedule. We highlighted initiatives such as the Weaving Resilience Programme, where Majority World actors are consolidating our experiences and using one voice to influence multilateral platforms and demand accountability and power.
Future Roles of INGOs
This group agreed that while on paper most INGOs agree that they are ready to change, fatigue setting in from too much talk and not enough action. We noted that INGOs have an important role to play and will still be relevant in the future, but their role and relevance will be different. The group suggested that INGOs can do more to come together and challenge their donors and regulators to drive the just transformation agenda. INGOs could seize this moment as an opportunity for momentum and adopt a positive narrative that change is possible and can be a ‘solution’ to criticisms of the development paradigm. But as one participant put it: “As long as INGOs keep talking to themselves and wondering what to do, the power they have will not shift!”