Why the INGO System Remains Stuck and How We Shift It
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Five years ago, I had the privilege of participating in the Reimagining the INGO (RINGO) systems change inquiry process. It was not another conference. It was not another strategy exercise. It was a collective attempt to ask a difficult question that many in the development sector had avoided for far too long:
Why, despite decades of reforms, commitments, localisation agendas, and partnership frameworks, does the international development system remain fundamentally stuck?
The inquiry brought together practitioners, activists, donors, academics, community leaders, and INGOs from across the world. What emerged was not simply a critique of the aid system. It was a diagnosis of a deeper condition: an ecosystem that had become exceptionally skilled at talking about change while resisting transformation.
Five years later, amid shrinking and increasingly conditional aid budgets across several major bilateral donors, the loss of key funding streams such as USAID funding, increasing scrutiny of INGOs, and growing calls for locally led development, it is worth revisiting the findings of that inquiry
The question today is not whether the sector is under pressure.
The question is whether we have addressed the root causes of the stuckness we identified five years ago.
My answer is both simple and uncomfortable:
Some progress has been made, but the fundamental architecture of power remains largely intact.
The Sector’s Greatest Challenge Was Never Technical
One of the most important insights from the RINGO inquiry was that the barriers to transformation were never primarily technical.
The development sector does not suffer from a shortage of strategies, frameworks, toolkits, policies, guidance notes, or consultants.
It suffers from a shortage of willingness to redistribute power.
The inquiry revealed that many organisations were trapped in cycles of perpetual reinvention. Every few years new language emerges: partnership, localisation, participation, ownership, decolonisation, shifting power.
Yet beneath the changing terminology, many of the same structures remained untouched.
Funding continued to flow through the same gatekeepers.
Decision-making remained concentrated in the same locations. In most cases still anchored in donor and INGO headquarters, with only partial decentralisation in select organisations.
Knowledge continued to be validated through the same institutions.
Accountability remained largely upward to donors rather than downward to communities.
The sector became highly effective at changing vocabulary while preserving power.
The Invisible Forces Behind Stuckness
One of the more difficult conversations during the inquiry centred around the role of fear.
Many leaders privately acknowledged concerns that rarely appear in public discussions.
What happens if we genuinely transfer decision-making power?
What happens if local actors no longer need us?
What happens if our organisations become smaller?
What happens if our funding declines?
What happens if our relevance is questioned?
These fears may sound uncomfortable, but they are real.
For many organisations, identity has become tied to control. Growth has become confused with impact. Visibility has become confused with value.
As a result, power is often discussed as something to be shared but rarely surrendered.
The challenge is not that people do not understand the need for change.
The challenge is that meaningful change requires letting go of privilege, influence, and certainty.
That remains one of the hardest transitions facing the sector today.
The Capacity Myth Still Persists
Five years ago, we heard repeated references to the supposed lack of capacity among organisations in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and other parts of the Global Majority.
The language was often subtle.
“We need to build their capacity.”
“They are not yet ready.”
“The risk is too high.”
“The systems are weak.”
Behind these statements sat an assumption that capability primarily resides in the Global North.
Five years later, the evidence suggests otherwise.
Across Africa and the wider Global Majority, local organisations continue to deliver impact despite operating with a fraction of the resources available to international actors.
Many have demonstrated extraordinary resilience through political instability, pandemics, economic shocks, climate crises, and funding cuts.
The real capacity gap is often not within local organisations.
It is within a system that struggles to trust them.
What continues to be described as risk is often a reflection of unequal power relationships rather than objective evidence.
The Trust Deficit Remains the Sector’s Biggest Problem
If I had to identify one issue that sits at the centre of the development system’s challenges, it would be trust.
Five years ago, the inquiry exposed a profound lack of trust running through the aid architecture.
This lack of trust manifests in endless reporting requirements, multiple approval layers, rigid compliance systems, excessive controls, and highly restricted funding.
Many local organisations are expected to demonstrate perfection before they receive support.
Meanwhile, large international institutions are often allowed to fail repeatedly without their legitimacy being questioned.
This imbalance creates a system where accountability is unevenly distributed.
Trust remains conditional for some actors and assumed for others.
Until we address this imbalance, discussions about localisation will continue to produce limited results.
Have Things Changed?
The honest answer is yes and no.
Yes, because conversations around decolonisation, localisation, trust-based philanthropy, and shifting power have moved from the margins to the mainstream.
Five years ago, many of these conversations were considered radical.
Today, they are regularly discussed in donor forums, board meetings, and international conferences.
That is progress.
But no, because the structural realities remain remarkably similar.
According to various analyses, only a very small percentage of international development funding reaches local organisations directly.
Most funding still flows through intermediaries.
Most strategic decisions are still made far from the communities affected by them.
Most definitions of success are still designed externally.
The rhetoric has evolved faster than reality.
What Must Happen Over the Next Five Years?
The current funding crisis presents a rare opportunity.
The sector can either double down on preserving outdated models or use this moment to accelerate transformation.
I believe five shifts are urgently needed.
- Move from Control to Trust
Trust should become the starting point rather than the reward.
This means simplifying compliance systems, increasing flexible funding, and recognising that learning often emerges through adaptation rather than rigid project management.
- Move from Representation to Redistribution
Diversity on panels and boards is important.
But representation without decision-making power changes very little.
Real transformation requires transferring authority, resources, and influence.
- Move from Charity to Justice
Development cannot continue to be framed primarily as generosity from one part of the world to another.
It must increasingly be understood through the lenses of equity, justice, solidarity, and shared responsibility.
- Move from Organisational Survival to Ecosystem Health
Too many organisations continue to optimise for institutional growth rather than collective impact.
The future belongs to ecosystems, networks, movements, and collaborative models.
The question should not be “How do we strengthen our organisation?”
The question should increasingly be “How do we strengthen the wider ecosystem?”
- Move from Localisation to Local Leadership
Localisation often implies bringing local actors into existing systems.
Local leadership requires redesigning systems around local actors from the start.
The difference is profound.
The Choice Before Us
Five years ago, the RINGO inquiry challenged us to disrupt the system before the system disrupted us.
Today, that disruption is no longer theoretical.
Funding models are changing.
Geopolitics is changing.
Public trust is changing.
Technology is changing.
The question is whether our institutions are changing fast enough.
The future of development will not be determined by who controls the most resources.
It will be determined by who is willing to build the most trust.
The organisations that thrive in the next decade will not necessarily be the largest or most powerful.
They will be those courageous enough to let go of outdated assumptions and embrace a new model grounded in solidarity, reciprocity, humility, and shared leadership.
The challenge before us is not simply to reform the system.
It is to reimagine it.
And perhaps, five years after the RINGO inquiry began, that work remains more urgent than ever.
For the full presentation, “Where is the INGO System Stuck? And How Do We Shift It?”, visit:
https://rightscolab.org/where-is-the-ingo-system-stuck-and-how-do-we-shift-it/
About the author
Charles Kojo Vandyck is a dynamic development practitioner and thought leader who is driving transformative change within civil society. As a Founding Member of the prestigious International Consortium on Closing Civic Space (iCon), spearheaded by the renowned Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Charles is at the forefront of transforming citizen participation worldwide. With positions as a Trustee of INTRAC and an Advisory Board Member of Disrupt Development, he is shaping the future from Oxford to Amsterdam. Charles's remarkable contributions continue as a Core Team Member of the game-changing Reimagining INGOs (RINGO) initiative and as the Head of the Capacity Development Unit at the West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI). Recognised by the Development Studies Association, Charles is also a certified Change the Game Academy Master Trainer and an IFC-Learning and Performance Institute Trainer. Prepare to be inspired by Charles as he paves the way for a more resilient, sustainable, and empowered civil society.
