Partos Innovation Festival 2022

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.

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!

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.

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.

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

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.

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!

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!

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!

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!

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.

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.

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

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”!

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.