What Does RINGO Mean for Different Sectors

RINGO is inten­tion­al­ly cross-sec­toral, and our Social Lab includes peo­ple who are work­ing in human­i­tar­i­an and devel­op­ment, envi­ron­ment, human rights, and peace­build­ing orga­ni­za­tions. That’s because RINGO seeks to address mul­ti­ple sys­temic issues that impact all sec­tors of INGOs.

Inter­nal­ly, abus­es relat­ed to gen­der, struc­tur­al racism, and pow­er with­in INGOs impact all orga­ni­za­tions. Shrink­ing civic space is a key chal­lenge, as INGOs and activists are increas­ing­ly fac­ing attack and scruti­ny from gov­ern­ment, ren­der­ing their work ever more com­plex and dif­fi­cult. COVID-19 has also accel­er­at­ed calls for increased local­iza­tion and more bot­tom-up pow­er amongst many CSOs work­ing at the nation­al or sub-nation­al lev­el. The Black Lives Mat­ter move­ment has also pro­vid­ed a direct impe­tus to final­ly address race and diver­si­ty.

Whilst INGOs are increas­ing­ly rec­og­niz­ing the need to build grass­roots pow­er, to enable stronger nation­al and sub­na­tion­al civ­il soci­eties, there will also con­tin­ue to be a need to have a mul­ti­lat­er­al approach across civ­il soci­ety too, bridg­ing orga­ni­za­tions, issues and geo­gra­phies. Yet it is clear that in some respects, INGOs are inhibit­ing progress and repli­cat­ing unequal pow­er struc­tures, tak­ing a larg­er share of resources, and poten­tial­ly imped­ing pro­gres­sive change. How civ­il soci­ety func­tions at the glob­al lev­el, and how it con­nects with the local, are crit­i­cal ques­tions for the RINGO project.

Addi­tion­al­ly, through focused Action Pods and our Social Lab con­ven­ings, the RINGO project is explor­ing issues that have direct impacts and rel­e­vance in indi­vid­ual sec­tors. These include:

RINGO and Envi­ron­men­tal Orga­ni­za­tions – what else is rel­e­vant?

• Con­flicts between con­ser­va­tion approach­es and indige­nous groups (decol­o­niza­tion)
• Decol­o­niza­tion: White Sav­ior com­plex, north­ern nar­ra­tives
• Accu­sa­tions of col­lud­ing with pow­er­ful forces, for exam­ple cor­po­rates or para­mil­i­taries
• Out of date fundrais­ing mod­els that reward unsus­tain­able behav­iors (e.g. con­sump­tion, cor­po­rate part­ner­ships with pol­lut­ing indus­tries)
• Clos­ing civic space – Grow­ing attacks on envi­ron­men­tal defend­ers
• Fail­ure to address root caus­es of bio­di­ver­si­ty loss or cli­mate change, instead sup­port­ing con­test­ed solu­tions and short-term ‘fix­es’ such as sus­tain­able palm oil

RINGO and Devel­op­ment and Human­i­tar­i­an orga­ni­za­tions – what else is rel­e­vant?

• Safe­guard­ing scan­dals: some of the respons­es have led to more account­abil­i­ty sys­tems and pres­sures on local orga­ni­za­tions, engen­der­ing less trust
• Resources: The Grand Bar­gain tar­get of 25% of human­i­tar­i­an fund­ing going to local response has not yet been met.
• Clos­ing civic space: Grow­ing attacks on human­i­tar­i­an actors, includ­ing crim­i­nal­iz­ing human­i­tar­i­an­ism
• Polit­i­cal ques­tions: a direct assault on the prin­ci­ples of the human­i­tar­i­an neu­tral­i­ty, with some start­ing to ques­tion their effi­ca­cy
• Rela­tion­ship with host gov­ern­ments and CSOs
• Dif­fi­cul­ty in nav­i­gat­ing the space between ‘ser­vice deliv­ery’ vs. ‘advo­ca­cy’
• Sources of fund­ing are shrink­ing and com­pe­ti­tion with the pri­vate sec­tor is grow­ing

RINGO and the Human Rights com­mu­ni­ty – what else is rel­e­vant?

• Local­iza­tion efforts have faced con­flicts and chal­lenges inter­nal­ly in orga­ni­za­tions
• Set­ting up nation­al offices have led to accu­sa­tions of squeez­ing the fundrais­ing of domes­tic human rights orga­ni­za­tions
• Clos­ing Civic space has imped­ed the abil­i­ty of inter­na­tion­al actors to local­ize
• Accu­sa­tions of bul­ly­ing with­in the sec­tor
• Dom­i­na­tion of white north­ern voic­es with chal­lenges in nav­i­gat­ing human rights work in a way that won’t threat­en local actors
• Grow­ing chal­lenges to human rights law inter­na­tion­al­ly and a lack of clar­i­ty on how the Inter­na­tion­al move­ment should coor­di­nate

RINGO and the Peace­build­ing Sec­tor – what else is rel­e­vant?

• Assump­tions about neu­tral­i­ty of north­ern voic­es are false – instead, they’re deeply root­ed in colo­nial­ism and pow­er dynam­ics impli­cat­ed in con­flict itself
• Grow­ing polar­iza­tion between local actors and mul­ti­lat­er­al spaces where peace is often nego­ti­at­ed, includ­ing at UN
• Inter­na­tion­al engage­ment towards peace­build­ing increas­ing­ly seen to be inef­fec­tive
• Demand for more ‘local­ly-led’ peace­build­ing grow­ing

Ques­tions that RINGO is explor­ing that will be impor­tant for all orga­ni­za­tions:

1. Pow­er and trust. How do we gen­uine­ly address con­cerns about pow­er and dom­i­nance in civ­il soci­ety, by INGOs? Can INGOs see their role in #Shift­the­P­ow­er and act on it?  Can we sup­port south­ern civ­il soci­ety to strength­en their own pow­er?
2. Diver­si­ty and gen­uine inclu­sion. How can INGOs address racial inequities with­in their own struc­tures? How can we facil­i­tate racial diver­si­ty in senior lead­er­ship and deci­sion-mak­ing process­es, and fos­ter gen­uine inclu­sion at all orga­ni­za­tion­al lev­els?
3. Gov­er­nance and account­abil­i­ty. How should INGOs be gov­erned? Who are they account­able to now? Who should they be account­able to in future? What form of gov­er­nance would cre­ate ‘effec­tive’ account­abil­i­ty? How can this shift away from north­ern dom­i­nance? Are legal changes required?
4. Funding/resources/ownership. How should INGOs be fund­ed in order to ensure their legit­i­ma­cy?  For many the major­i­ty of funds come from west­ern gov­ern­ments or cor­po­rates. Does this harm their inde­pen­dence or per­ceived inde­pen­dence as non-gov­ern­men­tal? What hap­pens when gov­ern­ments reduce their fund­ing? How can buy-in to sup­port longer-term fun­da­men­tal change be ensured?  Where should resources be direct­ed?
5. Ser­vice deliv­ery vs. advo­ca­cy. Do INGOs offer­ing ser­vices (such as water, health, edu­ca­tion or human­i­tar­i­an aid) con­flict with their advo­ca­cy objec­tives? Do the two work togeth­er effec­tive­ly? What are the chal­lenges? Is anoth­er mod­el need­ed?
6. Orga­ni­za­tion­al form. Do we need to adapt the legal mod­els of INGOs? What oth­er options are there? What orga­ni­za­tion­al form would strength­en legit­i­ma­cy and effec­tive­ness?
7. Size, scale and reach. Is there an opti­mal size or form of orga­ni­za­tion to have max­i­mum impact? What are the dif­fer­ent options and how do we avoid a ‘one size fits’ all mod­el?
8. Cul­ture, prac­tice and cog­ni­tion. What are the cul­tur­al norms that inform cur­rent prac­tice? How do we emerge from men­tal mod­els and assump­tions that are bar­ri­ers to change? How do orga­ni­za­tion­al / sec­tor pur­pose, val­ues and cul­ture com­bine to cre­ate legit­i­ma­cy and impact?
9. Resilience and adap­ta­tion. How can glob­al and nation­al civ­il soci­ety face dis­rup­tions in the years to come? How do we cre­ate stronger nation­al and sub­na­tion­al civ­il soci­eties? What new emer­gent mod­els are com­ing for­ward?  Is there a role for INGOs in sup­port­ing these?  What can they let go of in order for the emer­gence to thrive and be more resilient to adapt to risks?