Partos Innovation Festival 2023

This year’s closure will be something different! After a full day of workshops, talks and pitches, we end with a great line-up of Artists, activists and cultural performers that use arts and expression for social change. Dancer Ali Zanad will premiere with a performance that is specifically created around this festival theme. Then, we are proud to close our festival with Voice and the NOW-Us! Award Winners from Cambodia, Laos, Kenya, Mali and Tanzania. Combining slam poetry and digital media with fashion and storytelling, five innovators representing Neary, We Care, Northern Nomadic Disabled Persons Organization (NONDO), Jeuness’ART, and Culture and Women Advancement Foundation (CWAF), will lead participants in rousing chants and cheers to incantate for a just and inclusive future for all. After the final remarks of Lynn Zebeda and Bart Romijn, we have a rhythmic surprise that will (hopefully) help you loosen up as we move into our social drinks and after-party.

An opportunity to step in the shoes of the CEO of the future! While our organisations are adapting to changes in the world – social, political, economic, environmental and so on – leaders are continuously challenged to do the ‘right’ thing. Not really easy and only the very adaptive leader can probably keep pace with all these developments.  What does this mean for the leaders of the future?

Join this creative design session and help build the ideal leadership! Your inspiration will not be in vain, as it will help shape the upcoming “Partos learning journey for leaders”!

Addressing the root causes of poverty, through a system change approach is a buzzword in our sector. But, how do you start with system change? What does it require? Woord en Daad will share a tool, the system change canvas, which helps you to think and work with a system change approach. A practical example from the South is presented online by linking up with Ethiopia. In our view, a system change approach asks for localization and southern leadership. Woord en Daad will share its practice and vision on southern leadership and provides a practical tool to help your organisation work out a policy on southern leadership. A practical example is given from the Woord en Daad Power of Voices programme Benkadi (on civic climate change policy influencing) by online linking with the project leader of the programme.

This session is organised by Woord en Daad

How can we view the climate crisis from a historical, Indigenous and decolonial perspective? What impact do modern nation-states and multinationals have on Indigenous Peoples and their environment? In this workshop, we will uncover these links. We will also explore concrete examples of forms of reciprocity. The practice of reciprocity is based on Indigenous views and cosmovisions about a balanced relationship with nature. Through an Indigenous ceremony, we will bring our ancestors, current generations and future generations together. This will inspire participants to get started with reciprocity in their own life.

How do we combat negative gender-based stereotypes? How do we dispel the stigma around mental health issues? How do we create awareness against gender-based violence? How do we create enabling environments so all, mainly those left behind, can be economical and political leaders? The winners of Voice’s Nothing About Us Without Us (NOW-Us!) Awards have found the answers to these questions in artivism and cultural work. Hear from five changemakers representing Neary (Cambodia), We Care (Laos), Northern Nomadic Disabled Persons Organization (NONDO) (Kenya), Jeuness’ART (Mali) and Culture and Women Advancement Foundation (CWAF) (Tanzania), who are shifting cultural narratives in their communities and their countries towards greater inclusion.

To tackle conflicts, poverty, inequality, the climate crisis and other global challenges, we need solid support for development cooperation. Budget cuts, new policies, and discontinuation of public support activities cannot hold us back. More than ever, we need citizens and politicians to make a difference in a just world. It’s time for a new narrative to win the hearts and minds for stronger global solidarity. We must seek connection with citizen initiatives that work outside the existing frameworks. We can learn from successful narratives and engagement strategies from the women’s movement, youth organisations and diaspora initiatives.

In this live edition of the World Café, we look at inspiring examples and new perspectives from the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe. How do you tell a new story, create engagement and build a fanbase? How do you seduce citizens from giving to becoming part of a movement for justice, sustainability and development worldwide? Let’s put in motion the future of solidarity & development together: young, female & beyond borders!

There are many great ideas and insights on how we can accelerate and boost the impact of international development cooperation activities. Let’s reveal these ideas and put them into the spotlight. This will enable us to join forces to develop further and implement them. These new ideas, acceleration and joining forces are urgently needed to reverse the many alarming and reverse negative trends such as climate change, exclusion and injustice and to foster tipping points and a transition towards just, inclusive and sustainable development.

During the festival, directors from international civil society will pitch their BIG ideas that will be transformative for international development cooperation. Each of them is given three minutes to tell us something we don´t know that will change the game within the next ten years. How about a new style of leadership, a technological breakthrough, a new area of programming disruptive innovation or new ways of organising and collaborating?

A round of applause already for those whom we will see on stage! Join them and encourage collaboration to put their ideas into practice. Let’s create some synergy!

Dutch artist Jeroen van der Most creates art with data, algorithms, and artificial intelligence (AI). Jeroen’s artworks show a different, positive use of technology that deepens our relationships with our national surroundings. Global media regularly cover Most’s work, and it has been exhibited at renowned locations like ZKM Karlsruhe, New Zealand’s national museum Te Papa, Dutch Design Week, and AAF Hong Kong. He creates artwork autonomously and develops pieces for organisations like NVIDIA, Sogeti, Radboud University, and Amnesty International. He is a frequent international keynote speaker about his work.

This digital artist will take you on a visual journey passed a series of mind-boggling artworks built using algorithms and AI. The creative experiments you will encounter in this talk will make you rethink technology use, activism and social and environmental justice. Expect to see some art you’ve never seen before!

On October 14th, Willem Elbers and Sofka Trajcevska will surprise you with an interactive workshop to combine different experiences, innovations and best practices to bridge academia and practice in international development cooperation. Participating in this workshop allows you to enhance inclusiveness and civic power in your strategies.

How will they guarantee this learning objective? The starting point of the session is that development organisations can enhance the inclusiveness and civic power of their strategies if these are based on evidence and learning. We start with a brief presentation of insightful lessons learned in the cooperation between Liliane Fonds and the Radboud university through its ‘Breaking down Barriers’ project. Following this, we invite you to join us in small groups and share your ideas concerning constraining and enabling factors in cooperation between practitioners and academia and ownership of all stakeholders involved. We will wrap up with a plenary discussion.

Willem and Sofka are looking forward to starting the conversation with you!

Artificial intelligence, algorithms, web 3.0, NFTs, Metaverse, Robots … Are these future technologies, or are they ingrained and impact our everyday lives? It’s often stated that technological innovation has the potential to solve major issues contributing to inequalities, drastically improve the efficiency of social service delivery and enable democratic access to voice and information for people that are often left behind. On the contrary, new technologies’ ‘man-made’ consequences do not always surface. How do we ensure that real-world systems of exclusion, bias and human rights violations are not replicated in the latest technological innovations and realities we develop? What can non-profit organisations learn from technology if we explore it from a human rights and social justice perspective? With a panel of thought leaders, we will explore the role of technology in repairing or reproducing social inequalities.

Over the past decade or so, well-known Tanzanian human rights journalist Mohammed Hammie has committed himself to reporting on water and sanitation challenges in rural areas in Tanzania – and he has done so in different mediums, genres and styles. Always centring on the participation of the communities involved, he has produced many radio programmes, blogs, newspaper articles and educational books. His most recent book, Mandiga’s Well (2022), which has been shortlisted for the James Currey Prize for African Literature, tells the story of a Tanzanian woman, Mandiga, who struggles to access safe water in her village. Although a fictional character, Mandiga has sparked a lively dialogue about the daily experience of women in rural Tanzania. In collaboration with Simavi, there are now plans to amplify the actual voices of women through ‘spin-off’ storytelling initiatives advocating for social change (such as a comic book, radio play and short film).

In this session, Hammie will share his experience in storytelling for social change and discuss the creative and participatory approaches he has used. He will be flanked by Emiel Martens and Wouter Oomen of the Expertise Centre Humanitarian Communication. They will, from the perspective of ethical and inclusive communication, reflect on Hammie’s work and evaluate both successful and less successful mediums, genres and styles in storytelling for social change.

This session is in collaboration with Simavi and the Expertise Centre Humanitarian Communication

Is intersectionality the answer to leave no one behind? Will it help to counter the exclusion of people who are often overlooked? While intersectionality as a lens is gaining traction, the practical execution can be complex. NGOs, donors and those working in the field of development struggle with analysing problems and those most marginalised from an intersectional perspective. As Strategic Partnership for SRHR Make Way, we invite you to a hands-on workshop featuring youth advocates and development specialists from Uganda and Kenya to dive into the concept with us. We will show you how we use Intersectionality in our lobby and advocacy in Ethiopia, Zambia, Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya. And we’ll share our practical approach to using intersectionality within our work to improve people’s access to their Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) through advocacy.

During the interactive workshop, we will reflect on the Intersectional Community Score Card, a tool that is well-equipped to perform intersectional analyses that clarify grounds for exclusion and self-positioning based on community scoring of rights and services.

This session is organised by the Make Way SRHR programme, led by a consortium consisting of Akina Mama wa Afrika, the Circle of Concerned Women Theologians, the Federation of African Women Educationalists, Liliane Foundation, VSO and Wemos.

At the Climate March in Amsterdam in November 2021, activists and NGOs jointly mobilized 40.000 people for climate justice. Climate activists and NGOs can thus achieve great results by working together. Although the coming years will offer plenty of opportunities for continuing collaboration, there will undoubtedly be obstacles as well. For instance, NGOs are often accountable to (governmental) donors, limiting their capacity to cooperate with more disruptive activists.

In this participatory workshop, organized by Partos and WWF and with contributions from climate activists and NGOs, we will explore obstacles to and opportunities for activist-NGO collaboration for climate justice. We will discuss each other’s qualities and challenges and formulate the next steps for realizing climate justice.

In May this year, Partos launched the Shift the Power Lab 2.0. A unique global initiative to accelerate the shift of power dynamics within international development cooperation. Together with Partos members and international constituencies, the Lab works on four objectives:

• policy recommendations for the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other institutional donors
• tools to facilitate organisational change among (I)NGOs
• inclusive narratives and communication approaches within international development cooperation
• research to learn about the (un)intended effects of shifting power strategies

Six working groups are working on concrete prototypes or actions that focus on these objectives. For example, the organisational 360 tool, a handbook for inclusive communication and research on (un)intended effects of shift the power strategies.

In this session, the preliminary learnings, experiments and prototypes will be presented to you. Hear the lessons learned and enrich us with your feedback from your experiences and knowledge!

We welcome you to join the opening of the Partos Innovation Festival, which is themed around Inclusive Civic Power! Our exquisite festival host, Lynn Zebeda, will kick off the day and guide the live and online audience through a unique plenary program. Start the day with us as we walk through the program and set the tone for our festival theme together with Bart Romijn, Director of Partos.

Our first lightning talk of the day is from Pascalle Grotenhuis on Feminist Leadership. Pascalle Grotenhuis is Director Social Development and Ambassador for Gender Equality at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She will shine a light on the Dutch ministry’s (and her own) position on Feminist Leadership and a feminist Foreign policy.

The second lightning talk is from Chihiro Geuzebroek. As a multidisciplinary artist, public speaker, writer, organizer and trainer in decolonial and Indigenous Climate Justice perspectives, this talk promises to shake some ground. Chihiro often includes Indigenous arts, poetry and music elements in her work and performances. In other words, an inspirational highlight with valuable reflections on our roles and positions within Climate justice and development cooperation.

CIVICUS is an Alliance of more than 12,500 individual and organisational members, globally distributed, mainly across the Global South working to strengthen people power. With new technologies emerging and digital engagement opportunities arising, the time had come to move from a centralized to a more distributed model of engagement. In 2020, CIVICUS embarked on a journey to co-design a solution that could bring members together in a safe way.

In this session, we will be sharing the case of the CIVICUS Online community as a good example of the intersection between Human-centred Design, digital technologies and civic action, while addressing diversity, equity and inclusion. Participants will learn about tools, methods, and resources available to leverage digital technologies and innovation to advance their own community building, mobilisation, and collective action goals in a digital-oriented landscape.

Register for this online session here.

How to navigate between a pre-planned larger project log frame and the complexity of a civil society ecosystem to make space for transformational change, which may not always be possible to be planned? Whose reality counts in this process?

We would like to share our experience with participatory approaches to capacity strengthening for emerging/grassroots civil society actors (CSAs) within an EU-financed regional project, which took place simultaneously in Moldova, Georgia and Armenia (2020 – 2022).

We did not promote a uniform trajectory of CSA capacity strengthening, such as growing into a grants-based NGO. Instead, each actor (including informal initiatives and social movements) could take different paths which made sense in their context. This brought challenges and opportunities, both in managing the project upstream with the donor and downstream with the CSAs.

As well as sharing this project example, this session is an invitation to explore potential answers to our questions with those who come.

Register for this online session here. 

More and more organisations are considering investing in leadership that models sharing power, disrupts traditional hierarchies and signals the inclusion they would like to see.

Oxford HR has recently seen several examples of organisations creating shared leadership roles between two individuals with different lived experiences. Other organisations consider the shift, but many NGOs face challenges and constraints.

This session will be about co-leadership and will give the audience the chance to take a closer look at the topic with two people who are actively practising it: the co-leaders of ADD International, Mary Ann Clements and Fredrick Ouko. They will share their perspectives, thoughts and views on the experience of actually doing co-leadership and the unique benefits, and challenges, this can bring to an organisation.

You might want to join in case you are interested in:

● Know more approaches to share power at the leadership level

● Be exposed to a new trend and innovative approach in leading organisations

● Have the opportunity to hear first-hand experience of how is it like on a practical level to co-lead an organisation

The guests of the session are Fredrick Ouko, a disability activist and leader who joined ADD International from Open Society Initiative earlier this year. Moreover, Mary Ann Clements, his co-lead and a leader, facilitator and coach and is also founder of Healing Solidarity, a project supporting practitioners to re-imagine international development.

Sobhi Khatib, Senior Consultant at Oxford HR, will moderate the session. Sobhi is Diversity & Inclusion practitioner, and storyteller and has almost two decades of experience in innovation, strategy and storytelling.

ADD international was founded in 1985 with a clear mission to support the liberation of disabled people and their rejection of how their voices and issues were marginalised. Co-executive leadership is a powerful model which has been adopted to help support the organisation in re-thinking how it operates as an INGO. Together, Frederick and Mary Ann are leading the transformation of ADD International as it moves towards a structure in which more power and resources are shared with people with disabilities and their organisations.

Oxford HR is a global leadership consultancy working exclusively with purpose-led organisations.

Register for this online session here. 

Despite their critical contributions to civic power, grassroots activists are labelled by many as less skilled, capable, accountable, and stable than large and professionalised NGOs. Depending on who you ask, they are also portrayed as victims, martyrs, heroes or villains. Let’s discuss how these toxic narratives limit grassroots activists’ impact and access to funding, partnerships and decision-making spaces and how we can and should collectively counter them.

Register for this online session here.

IUCN NL and partners will explore the link between women, youth, Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs) and their forests. This session is about how women, youth and IPLCs are protecting their forests. How they take up roles in forest management. How they benefit sustainably from its resources.

Indigenous women and youth play a key role as environmental defenders and are often at the frontline of defending their land against extractive activities such as oil exploration and mining. Yet, they are also essential for their households and communities’ food production, gathering medicinal plants and water and the sustainable use of natural resources. They also safeguard and transfer much of the traditional knowledge about nature.

In this session, we will start off with a menti-quiz, then the panelists from Bolivia, Uganda and Ghana will share their personal stories followed by an interactive discussion.

Register for this online session here.

What does a reimagining of INGOs look like? The RINGO Project has spent 18 months bringing together change-makers worldwide, promoting joint innovation and action to drive the transformation needed in the civil society ecosystem. Join us to discover what we are learning during this process and learn more about our eight prototypes that disrupt our current system and what they mean for the future role of INGOs. We will deep-dive into one of our prototypes: South meets North in Power Shift: A Framework for Effective Participatory Grant-Making. This prototyping team is exploring how participatory grantmaking (PGM) approaches in Kenya and Ghana could enable a deeper shift in power by disrupting the resource flows and forging a new and emergent role for those who provide resources, affecting how they engage with local actors. Deborah Doane (RINGO core team) will be joined by RINGO Lab members Charlotte Timson (Traidcraft Exchange) and Mohammed Awal Alhassan (Norsaac) in this engaging session.

Register for this online session here

Together we will celebrate the launch of the Impact Stories magazine, a collection of transformative narratives by our members. The stage at the Partos Innovation Festival will come alive with captivating Impact Stories shared by three of our members. Each presentation promises a unique journey of innovation and impact. They will delve into the challenges they encountered along the way, providing valuable insights and lessons learned. Get ready to be inspired by their remarkable achievements and commitment to positive change!

Stay tuned to our website for previews.

We invite you to join a thought-provoking panel that delves deep into innovative strategies to adapt to interconnected challenges of this era – climate crisis, civic space shrinkage, and inequality. This panel aims to foster a holistic discussion by integrating viewpoints from key sectors – corporate, non-governmental organisations, and government. This diverse representation will offer multifaceted insights into how collaboration between these entities can catalyze innovative solutions and pave the way for a sustainable future. Discover how collaboration across sectors drives solutions, addresses colonial legacies, and shapes NGOs’ evolving roles in a rapidly changing world. 

Meet our esteemed panellists:

• Dr. Anneloes Smitsman – Renowned futurist, systems scientist and founder of EARTHwise Centre. Her groundbreaking work in human development and systems change impacts global economics, education, and governance through the Transition Plan for a Thrivable Civilization.
• Tessa Wernink – As the co-founder of Fairphone and The Undercover Activist, Tessa passionately advocates for ethical and sustainable practices in the corporate world, demonstrating how businesses can contribute significantly to positive change.
• Gerald Abila – Founder of BarefootLaw, Gerald is a visionary legal advocate who will shed light on leveraging technology and legal empowerment to bridge the justice gap for marginalized communities.
• Saranel Benjamin – As the Co-Executive Director of Mama Cash with 30 years of experience in the development sector, she demonstrates visionary leadership in decolonizing partnerships and aid, racial justice and intersectional feminism.
• Peter-Derrek Hof – the newly appointed Ambassador Women’s Rights and Gender Equality and Director Social Development brings a wealth of diplomatic experience, having previously served as the Dutch Ambassador to Yemen.

We invite you to join a thought-provoking panel that delves deep into innovative strategies to adapt to interconnected challenges of this era – climate crisis, civic space shrinkage, and inequality. This panel aims to foster a holistic discussion by integrating viewpoints from key sectors – corporate, non-governmental organisations, and government. This diverse representation will offer multifaceted insights into how collaboration between these entities can catalyze innovative solutions and pave the way for a sustainable future. Discover how collaboration across sectors drives solutions, addresses colonial legacies, and shapes NGOs’ evolving roles in a rapidly changing world. 

Meet our esteemed panellists:

• Dr. Anneloes Smitsman – Renowned futurist, systems scientist and founder of EARTHwise Centre. Her groundbreaking work in human development and systems change impacts global economics, education, and governance through the Transition Plan for a Thrivable Civilization.
• Tessa Wernink – As the co-founder of Fairphone and The Undercover Activist, Tessa passionately advocates for ethical and sustainable practices in the corporate world, demonstrating how businesses can contribute significantly to positive change.
• Gerald Abila – Founder of BarefootLaw, Gerald is a visionary legal advocate who will shed light on leveraging technology and legal empowerment to bridge the justice gap for marginalized communities.
• Saranel Benjamin – As the Co-Executive Director of Mama Cash with 30 years of experience in the development sector, she demonstrates visionary leadership in decolonizing partnerships and aid, racial justice and intersectional feminism.
• Peter-Derrek Hof – the newly appointed Ambassador Women’s Rights and Gender Equality and Director Social Development brings a wealth of diplomatic experience, having previously served as the Dutch Ambassador to Yemen.

Join us for the grand opening of the Partos Innovation Festival’s landmark tenth edition! A warm welcome awaits as we embark on an inspiring journey of innovation and collaboration.

Through this immersive keynote speech, Dr. Anneloes Smitsman guides us to the root causes of the systemic barriers that are undermining the necessary progress and collaboration for securing a thrivable world and future within safe planetary boundaries. These systemic barriers result from the mechanistic systems and growth models that continue to direct the development trajectories of our mainstream societies, and require transformation through a living systems approach to development. Through a future visioning, Anneloes will help us unleash our personal and collective power of innovation, and help us reflect on what this means within the larger context of our evolutionary development as a species. Inviting us to become the new story of development cooperation through innovation partnership for collective thriving.

We eagerly anticipate the enlightening pitches from our past Innovation, NowUs! and Collaborative Innovations Award winners! What difference has their innovation made and how are they doing today? As they reflect on their continued development, they will undoubtedly showcase the transformative power of innovation. From groundbreaking projects to life-changing initiatives, their contributions have shaped communities and driven positive change. Looking ahead, their vision for the future promises even greater advancements and collaborations!

The Partos Innovation Festival’s uplifting and energising closing will leave you inspired and motivated. Celebrate the impact of innovation and look ahead to a brighter, collaborative future.

Prepare to be mesmerised by Justin Samgar de Verteller’s rhythmic and compelling spoken word performance at the Partos Innovation Festival. With poetic flair, he’ll skillfully recap and weave together the event’s highlights, leaving a lasting impression of inspiration and solidarity.

Combating misinformation and bringing awareness through songs.

By Mercy Corps & African Radio Drama Association 

In a world plagued by misinformation, where rumours spread like wildfire and hate speech fuels violence, a group of dedicated individuals in Nigeria embarked on a mission to combat the dangerous tide. Mercy Corps and the African Radio Drama Association (ARDA) joined forces, recognising the power of social media both as a catalyst for misinformation and as a potential tool for change.