The Regional and International Networking Group (RING)

ZERO is part of the Regional and International Networking Group (RING) for sustainable development, an alliance of predominantly Southern based research institutes, and the only international network of environment and development research organisations actively involved in a structured programme of collaborative policy research. It was formed in 1991 to stimulate preparations for the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. At that time it was felt that the national preparations were insufficiently broad-based and lacking critical depth and analysis.

RING-CLACC

Strengthening Civil Society in Least Developed Countries for Adaptation to Climate Change 

The LDCs are the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, due to their geographical location in some of the most vulnerable areas and their low capacity to cope with drought, floods, cyclones, etc. Supporting LDCs in their efforts to adapt to the impacts of climate change requires long-term capacity strengthening within government as well as civil society.

The National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPA) process, started under the aegis of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is one mechanism through which national stakeholders can understand the problems of climate change and their role in building resilience to its adverse impacts, and identify a portfolio of appropriate adaptation projects.

During the period under review, ZERO continued to work closely in the CLACC project by continued strengthening of the civil society on Adaptation to climate change.

So far ZERO has initiated country healthy studies in the three LDCs in their charge.  The participating countries are: Malawi; Mozambique and Zambia. Workshops were held in each of the three countries to deliberate on the healthy study reports. The reports will be distributed at the future COP/MOP meetings. Read the Malawi   Mozambique  Zambia reports

The Network

Since 1992, there have been major changes in approaches to international environment and development co-operation and policy, and shifts in terms of the players now in the game, and the challenges placed before them. These have served to highlight the critical role of the types of organisations which make up the RING, and in particular, the added-value of a South-South and South-North collaborative network of leading policy research institutes working on sustainable development from local to international levels.

In the run up to Rio +10, governments, NGOs and inter-governmental agencies are beginning to review progress in the implementation of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit agreement. Progress has been uneven. Despite a number of success stories, such as national environment and development strategy processes, local agenda 21s, and impressive activity at community levels, much more can be done to link commitments and policies made at an international level, to practical local and national action.

The RING has developed a strong and unique platform for regional and international collaboration, knowledge-sharing, and policy advocacy. Through a programme of pooled and collaborative research the network has sought to establish a common ground on beliefs, values and objectives in relation to its priority themes of: (1) Sustainable Livelihoods; (2) Water and People; (3) Multilateral Environmental Agreements; and (4) Policy Impacts.

The overall challenge now is to utilise the RING’s capacity and comparative advantage in order to ensure that its work:

Current RING Members and Expanding the Network

Current RING members include the following organisations:

• Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies, BCAS in Bangladesh
• Development Alternatives in India
• International Institute for Environment and Development, IIED in the UK
• IIED America Latin in Argentina
• Nigeria Environmental Study Action Team, NEST in Nigeria
• Sustainable Development Policy Institute, SDPI in Pakistan
• ZERO Regional Environment Organisation, in Zimbabwe
• ENDA in Senegal
• SEI-Boston in the USA

Other potential members who have been invited to join the RING include:

• ACTS, Kenya
• TEI, Bangkok
• PDA, Bangkok, Thailand
• IISD, Canada

What Kind of Organisations are RING members?

• All aim to be leaders in their respective or combined fields of research, policy, training, capacity development, and information in the promotion of sustainable development.
• In designing options for promoting sustainable development, all emphasise:

• economic efficiency
• equity and social justice
• environmental care
• empowerment and self-reliance.

• Each organisation places a special emphasis on the poorest and disadvantaged, their enterprise, and their knowledge and ability to manage resources sustainably.
• Each recognises that while empowerment and self-reliance is key, sustainable development requires the full participation and clear definition of rights and responsibilities of all major stake-holders in the process, including the private sector, the state and civil society. Appropriate institutions therefore are critical.

The strategies of the RING organisations include:

• Collaborative research and research action for understanding and learning.
• Innovation and appropriate design of knowledge structures to diffuse knowledge of good practice.
• Promoting appropriate policies through policy analysis and innovative institutional structures, including participatory policy processes in order to provide an enabling environment for good practice
• Helping to design effective decision-making systems which make linkages across levels, including local to international, across major groups (with communities, NGOs, government, private sector and inter-government), disciplines (economics, natural and social sciences), and government departments, in order to turn good policy into sound practice.
• All organisations work on the continuum linking research, policy, advocacy, and action.

Capacity strengthening of the Least Developed Countries for Adaptation to Climate Change (CLACC)

Fellowship Programme for Southern Africa (2005)

From 10 April to 13 May 2005, ZERO Regional Environment Organisation (ZERO)  coordinated a regional Adaptation to Climate Change Programme within the SADC Region with support from RING and IIED. Following a successful programme planning with RING and IIED, ZERO signed Memorandum of Understanding with CURE  (Malawi), GED from (Mozambique) and EECZ from (Zambia) to undergo a Fellowship Programme on Climate and Adaptation for a period of six weeks in Harare, Zimbabwe.

The CLAAC Fellowship Programme was aimed at building the capacity of civil society organizations in 12 LDCs, on issues relating to adaptation to climate change. The programme that was initially supposed to start on the 19th of March 2005 finally took off from 10^th April 2005 for an estimated period of six weeks hosted by ZERO in Harare, Zimbabwe. The fellowship attracted three participants from Mozambique by the name Albetina Bambaige from GED, Zambia represented by Dr. George Kasali of EECZ and Malawi represented by CURE. Zimbabwe though hosting it is not listed as a Least Developed Country hence did not have a representative for this fellowship.  

CLACC Fellowship Programme in Europe (2004)

This fellowship programme came as a precedent of yet another fellowship which saw four regional CLACC/RING Fellows being supported to spend two months each in Europe in the first half of 2004. They were: (i) Victor Orindi from ACTS who was at CICERO in Oslo, Norway, (ii) Mozaharul Alam (Babu) from BCAS who was at IIED, UK and (iii) Johannes Chigwada from ZERO who was at PIK, Potsdam Germany. All three of them also attended the subsidiary bodies (SB20) meeting of the UNFCCC in Bonn, Germany in June 2004. The fourth CLACC/RING Fellow, Salimata Wade from ENDA will be spending her time with SEI, Oxford and IIED, London in 2005. All four CLACC/RING regional Fellows attended COP10 in Buenos Aires, Argentina in December 2004.

Current Ring Priority Research Themes And Other Activities

Five principal areas of activity

From its inception in 1992, five principal areas of activity were identified for the RING:

• Developing institutional capacity
• Bilateral research initiatives
• Regional initiatives and network development
• Joint ‘pooled’ and collaborative research.
• Strengthening institutional links – fundraising/advocacy

Areas of focus

Following an initial focus on strategic development and planning within the individual organisations, the RING network moved on to consolidate its regional bi-lateral exchanges and ‘pooled research’, with the aim of developing collaborative research programmes around common priority themes. The themes which emerged as being ‘common’ or ‘priority’ issues were:

These topics are linked:

• By pooling research on Sustainable Livelihoods the aim was to create a common RING understanding (and the touchstone for collaboration) which informs our future analysis and approach: The RING examines environment and development problems from the perspective of poor people - what is the effect on sustainable livelihoods?
• By examining the RING experience on how as applied research and policy institutes, RING members believe they have impact, members learn from one another, and lay the ground for monitoring and improving impacts.
• Pooled research on MEAs emphasises the RING’s global focus, and develops concepts for longer-term collaboration, and develops a RING comparative advantage in respect to the challenges of implementation as they affect sustainable livelihoods (economic and community incentives for implementation), and as they relate to issues of policy coherence.
• The water and people research will be a test of the added value of such pooled research to an emerging global priority.

In addition to the ongoing pooled and collaborative research around these themes, the RING continues to hold annual international planning meetings, regional research workshops, and operates a series of exchange visits of research staff between organisations (see 2.6.i).

Achievements to date

• The RING network has now established a strong degree of internal trust and friendship, and created a solid foundation upon which to build future collaboration.
• It is a known and established network in the field. Its individual members all have solid reputations and strive for excellence.
• There is a strong working relationship and commitment to collaboration amongst its member organisations, which is becoming increasingly internalised at the programme and project research level.
• The common shared visions, and the pooled and collaborative research have been explored and are currently being produced in the form of a RING Publications Series.
• A complementary and harmonious approach to sustainable development issues has been achieved through close co-operation, ‘knowledge exchange’ and the sharing of ideas and experiences
• A web site will be set up during 2000 to facilitate the exchange of ideas and information.
• A RING Directory of ‘People, Projects and Publications’ will soon be made available electronically as a valuable source of information for all.

Constraints and Challenges

Although the RING has been able to carry out much of its agenda in the last three years it has not been able to be as coherent and strategic as it had hoped. This has been due to a number of constraints and challenges, which include:

• A limited network coverage globally (particularly in Latin America, North America and Europe)
• While regional and bi-lateral exchanges between RING members in Asia is very strong and established, the links in Africa have been less developed. The addition of ENDA TM in Senegal as a RING member has however significantly enhanced and strengthened the RING African regional group as well as the wider international RING network
• A lack of funds to support dedicated staff in each institute to co-ordinate network activity and to prioritise the work on RING related collaborative research and publications
• The lack of a dedicated ‘research driver’ to ensure that the research agenda of the RING is carried through to full potential and that new priority areas of study are identified and developed according to RING network capacity. The situation however, was significantly improved during 1999 when two RING research drivers were appointed to undertake this role

• Insufficient linkages to other groups and networks working on similar issues
• Prioritising the RING work institutionally, amidst the demands of survival in an increasingly competitive (and resource shrinking) environment.

 RING outputs

RING Working Papers

The RING Working Paper Series is designed to showcase and share the research conducted by partner institutions on key RING themes. While the general focus of RING research is sustainable development, areas of special focus include Sustainable Livelihoods, Water, Governance, and Multilateral Environmental Agreements. A major purpose of the RING Working Paper Series is to nurture international knowledge exchange and research collaboration between institutions engaged in policy research and action for sustainable development, particularly in the South.

Recent papers in the RING Working Paper Series include:

Further papers are planned.

Policy Matters newsletter

One of the objectives of the RING Phase 1 was to strengthen the environment and development understanding of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) by forging collaborative links with CEESP (Commission for Environment, Economics and Social Policy). Several joint meetings were held between the RING and CEESP, which led to some collaborative research activities taking place between experts from within the respective networks.

An influential output from this phase of activity was a quarterly journal, published by CEESP and part financed by the RING, called Policy Matters. Apart from providing a news update on both network activities, Policy Matters was a collection of essays and articles on particular themes in the areas of environment, development, economic and social policy (including Sustainable Livelihoods, Governance, Climate Change, and others). The authors were drawn from the rich pool of expertise contained within the RING organisations and CEESP network of individuals.

Policy Matters was distributed widely, and judging from the response received from individuals and organisations, considered to be a valuable means of accessing current thinking on a wide range of critical issues. The benefit of Policy Matters in terms of information sharing is clear, and the potential for policy impact considerable.

RING Directory

The RING Directory is currently in draft form.

The purpose of the RING Research Resource (RRR) Directory is to provide an easy-to-use reference of the resources available amongst the RING partners. The goal is two-fold. The internal goal is to provide researchers within each partner organisation with clear descriptions and an easy access to information about who is doing what at other RING organisations on the issues of mutual interest. The external goal is to showcase the synergies and complimentarities that distinguish the RING as a collective. The Directory will be structured around RING themes and will highlight the 'three P's’ – People, Projects, and Publications. For each theme, who are the people who have the expertise and interest, what are the projects already in place at each partner organisation, and what is available in terms of publications? The final directory will be easy-to-use, with cross-referencing, and available on the RING website.

RING Phase 2: Regional and International Research and Planning Meetings

‘Phase 2’ of the RING’s work was launched during the period January to March 2000 via a series of regional and an international research and planning meetings.

Regional

A regional research and planning meeting was held in Dakar in February. The occasion brought together research associates from ZERO, NEST, ENDA and four other African countries to present research papers on RING priority themes, and to discuss and plan the focus and framework for a future programme of regional collaborative research. The meeting symbolised a significant expansion and strengthening of the RING Africa regional network.

The second of the two regional meetings was held in Jhansi, India, during March, and was followed on directly by the 5^th International RING meeting. Again, the meeting brought together researchers from SDPI, BCAS and DA, with the objective of designing a collaborative regional research programme for Phase 2 of the RING, focused on the RING priority themes.

International

The 5^th International RING Strategy and Planning Meeting took place in New Delhi, India, on 21 and 22 March 2000. In addition to reviewing Phase 1 and consolidating strategy for Phase 2, this meeting provided the platform for presenting the results of RING Phase 1 and proposals for Phase 2 to an invited donor community.

Future Priorities and Strategy (2000 to 2003)

The future priorities for the RING are:

During the next three-year period from 2000 to 2003 the RING proposes to:

• consolidate and build upon achievements through developing collaborative research proposals around the RING priority themes.
• expand the network strategically (i.e., to strengthen regional representation and cover other emerging themes).
• produce more targeted outputs in order to achieve maximum policy impact.
• work with milestones (i.e., global conferences etc.)
• develop closer collaboration with other networks.

In particular, the RING aims to develop more alliances and more substantive work on themes in the context of sustainable livelihoods. The basis for this work will be shaped by addressing the following considerations:

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