The RINGO Learning Festival Report

The RINGO Learn­ing Fes­ti­val took place on 31st Octo­ber – 3rd Novem­ber 2022, and received 1000 reg­is­tra­tions from allies in 57 coun­tries around the world. The free four-day online event was the cul­mi­na­tion of two years of intense work in the RINGO Social Lab; a col­lec­tive sys­tems-change process intend­ed to reshape and re-imag­ine what INGOs could and should be. How­ev­er, what emerged from this phase of our work was alto­geth­er more holis­tic and all-encom­pass­ing of what we need to strength­en in civ­il soci­ety: not just how INGOs work and are struc­tured, but also the role of nation­al and local civ­il soci­ety too.

Click here for the full RINGO Learning Festival Report

Dur­ing the fes­ti­val, we ran a series of Inno­v­a­tive Edge ses­sions where mem­bers of the RINGO Social Lab shared learn­ings from the pro­to­typ­ing process:

• The team tri­alling a new approach to risk and com­pli­ance man­age­ment dis­cussed the need for build­ing trust and hav­ing brave con­ver­sa­tions
• The Pledge for Change demon­strat­ed a new learn­ing and account­abil­i­ty mech­a­nism
• Trans­form Trade and Nor­saac shared case stud­ies from Kenya of how Par­tic­i­pa­to­ry Grant-Mak­ing (PGM) can shift pow­er dynam­ics
• We con­sid­ered how tech­nol­o­gy can address one of the key bar­ri­ers to sys­tems change: lan­guage and inclu­sive com­mu­ni­ca­tion
• We heard how the idea for a Decolonis­ing Advi­so­ry Com­mu­ni­ty was dri­ven by a long-stand­ing demand from local actors to chal­lenge the ‘supe­ri­or­i­ty’ of views from INGOs
• GFCF invit­ed us to join the cam­paign to End Tied Aid to North­ern CSOs, a prac­tice that sees only 7% of fund­ing from bilat­er­al donors go direct­ly to south­ern civ­il soci­ety
• We were intro­duced to an Alter­na­tive Sol­i­dar­i­ty Mod­el that is devel­op­ing a reverse call for pro­pos­als that puts the needs of the peo­ple at the cen­tre

Over the four days we also host­ed sev­er­al ple­nary ses­sions and work­shops. At our open­ing ses­sion – RINGO: Ready for Change – RINGO’s Nana Afadz­inu (WASCI) remind­ed us why we embarked on this process of re-imag­in­ing the INGO, and wel­comed Ever­joice Win (SOAS, Shine Cam­paign) and Peter Wal­ton (CARE Aus­tralia) to dis­cuss inno­v­a­tive solu­tions that can trans­form the sec­tor – and how the time for action is now. On day two, Janet Mawiy­oo (for­mer KCDF) and Deb­o­rah Willig (Inter­Ac­tion) inter­ro­gat­ed pow­er and own­er­ship while ask­ing Whose change is this?

After hear­ing from the pro­to­types, a host of fan­tas­tic speak­ers includ­ing Jen­ny Hodg­son (GFCF), Tijani Hamza (Oxfam Ghana), Miguel de la Vega (Unidosc), Wolf­gang Jamann (ICSC), Elisa Lopez Alvara­do (Account­able Now), Osai Ojigho (Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al Nige­ria), Atje Drexler (Robert Bosch Stiftung) and Rachel Smith (Glob­al­Giv­ing) joined us to Map the Change we want to see. Dur­ing these work­shops, we col­lec­tive­ly explored how to lever­age what we’ve learned to influ­ence the wider sys­tem in these key areas: resource flows , account­abil­i­ty, sol­i­dar­i­ty, gov­er­nance and lead­er­ship.

To close the fes­ti­val, we invit­ed you to con­sid­er Beyond RINGO: What Next? RINGO’s Nana Afadz­inu and Deb­o­rah Doane (Rights Colab) reflect­ed on what we have learned over the pre­vi­ous days, and Bhe­ki Moyo (CAPSI, Wits) and Dan­ny Sriskan­dara­jah (Oxfam GB) dis­cussed the roles we can each play to dri­ve the trans­for­ma­tion of INGOs and glob­al civ­il soci­ety.

You can watch record­ings of all the ses­sions here.