Reos Partners
Learning Festival 2018
Transformative approaches towards the Sustainable Development Goals
The Festival
Two days of shared learning about transformative approaches to the Sustainable Development Goals
22-23 May 2018
SDG Solution Space
​
Crêt Bérard
Once a year, Reos Partners meets for our Global Meeting, which enables us to connect across our seven offices and learn together about how our work is advancing in different sectors and regions, how our methods are evolving, and approaches for both deepening and scaling the impact of our work. In conjunction with our Global Meeting, we hold a two-day by-invitation-only Learning Festival for partner organizations to join us in our reflection on practice.
​
The 2018 Global Meeting and Learning Festival was held in Geneva, Switzerland, and was organized in collaboration with the SDG Transformations Forum, SDG Lab, and the SDG Solution Space. The Geneva location offered us an opportunity to connect our work more deeply with the “2030 Agenda” reflected in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and with the unique ecosystem of institutions in this internationally connected yet also intimate and innovative space.
​
The schedule included frank and open sharing of experiences with transformative approaches to the SDGs, learning journeys to initiatives within Geneva that are working in transformative ways or particularly in touch with “frontier issues”, reflective conversations about how to strengthen and amplify transformative approaches, and open space to develop new and strengthen existing collaborations, transformative methods for addressing complex, stuck challenges.
​
The objectives of the festival were to:
​
-
Develop, deepen and document our understanding of both tested and emerging transformative approaches to addressing systemic challenges,
​​
-
Build relationships and community among practitioners actively engaged in multi- stakeholder systems change processes,
​
-
Strengthen capacities of the Reos Partners team to do our best work as well as the capacity of the convenors we partner with to lead transformative processes effectively.
​
Lead facilitators
​
Mille Bojer and Fernando Rossetti
​
​
​
Programme
TUESDAY MAY 22
​
SDG SOLUTION SPACE
7:00 am - Bus departs from Crêt-Bérard
​
8:00 am - Breakfast / coffee at SDG Solution Space
9:00 am – Programme begins
​
-
Framing for the day
-
About SDG Solutions Space, SDG Lab, and SDG Transformations Forum
-
Pecha Kucha: Introductions to 6 transformative case initiatives
-
Mapping of transformations that are happening and needed in 10 SDG areas
​
12:00 pm - Packed lunch. Break into smaller groups to go on ‘learning journeys’ in Geneva around transformative approaches to the SDGs and “frontier issues”
​
3:00 pm - Return to SDG Solution Space to work in groups to map key learning and dilemmas in transformative approaches. These learnings will be actively cross-polinated across the groups. Identification of questions to explore for Wednesday.
​
6.30 pm - Cocktail at Maison de la Paix with Geneva stakeholders providing an opportunity to connect with a diverse group of related stakeholders.
​
8:30 pm - Bus returns to Cret-Berard
WEDNESDAY MAY 23
​
CRÊT-BERARD
Learning Festival Retreat day
​
9am Programme starts
Reflection exercises to share insights and questions from yesterday about transformation.
​
An open space session will be offered. Through these discussions, we will deepen the enquiry into subjects offered by the group. This will likely include sessions on financing, measuring transformation, and stretch collaboration, among others.
​
Feedback from small groups into larger group and harvesting of learnings.
Guests depart 5:00 pm
Informal dinner and story-telling (optional for guests)
Pre-reading
By Mille Bojer
To create systems of societal change, we need to become clearer about the archetypes of societal change strategies, their strengths and weaknesses, and their interactions.
By Fernando Rossetti
Learning Festival Partners
About Reos Partners
Methods for systemic change
Reos Partners is an international social enterprise that designs, facilitates, and guides processes to enable teams of stakeholders to make progress on their toughest challenges. Our approach is systemic, collaborative, and creative. We partner with governments, corporations, and civil society organisations on challenges such as education, health, food, energy, environment, development, justice, security, and peace. Our teams operates both globally and locally, with offices in Amsterdam, Cambridge (Massachusetts), Geneva, Johannesburg, Melbourne, Montréal, and São Paulo.
​
For 20 years, Reos Partners has been practicing a rigorous set of methods that help people make progress on complex, stuck challenges. Our approach both opens and creates paths to crucial systemic transformations. The starting point is a diverse coalition that is ready to challenge the status quo, together.
Reos=greek for flow (“rheos”)
