Fostering equitable North-South civil society partnerships: Voices from the South

This report is based on a survey conducted in Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Middle East, South America and Oceania from August to November 2020 to capture views from global south NGOs to identify, understand, and inform what is needed to better respond to the challenges of engaging with INGOs. The survey is one of the critical research and documentation phases which include case study collection, focus group discussions and desktop research.

This report presents the outcomes of the survey and presents the views and voices of global south CSOs and provides records of ideas, suggestions and recommendations on how NGO north-south relationships and power dynamic should evolve. It captures the concerns of global south civil society actors and their relationship with INGOs in four key areas: partnerships, collaborations, decision making, structures and practices. The survey outcome is an essential input to the overall implementation of the RINGO project*. It serves as one of the key inputs to inform and initiate community engagements and develop the prototype mechanisms for a re-imagined INGO and global civil society ecosystem. The feedback from the global south civil society organizations will inform other global initiatives and influence existing or emerging relationships between civil society organizations in the North and South to reshape the global civil society sector to be equitable, interdependent and mutually reinforcing. Watch a recording of the report launch here.

* In July 2020, Rights CoLab launched the Re-imagining International Non-Governmental Organisation (RINGO) project to facilitate a transformational change in the global civil society sector. RINGO is a systems change initiative set up to respond to the challenges of INGOs and the criticism of their relationships with global south civil society organizations which have informed initiatives like decentralizing, safeguarding, localization and the 2011 fund ing frames; as well as global movements and conversations like the #ShiftThePower movement.

Published: March 2021

Published by: Rights CoLab and the West Africa Civil Society Institute

Download: ‘Fostering equitable North-South civil society partnerships: Voices from the South‘