Irish Aid Strategy Review: Upcoming meetings

Irish Aid has asked the Global Education Network Europe (GENE) to conduct a peer review of development education in Ireland.

To ensure the Development Education sector has a strong voice in this process, IDEA is facilitating three task groups: one on formal education, one on the adult and community education sector and one on the youth sector, with each group considering successes, challenges, opportunities and strategic priorities for development education in their area, before bringing their recommendatoons to the GENE team. Each of the three groups will meet between now and April, before then meeting the GENE evaluation team in April. A plenary consultation will meet between now and April for the enture development education sector to contribute to the review and the Irish Aid strategy.

Each group has had the first of their three meetings. Upcoming meetings:

– Adult and Community Task Group: March 12, 12 noon-2pm and April 16, 12 noon-2pm
– Formal Education Task Group: March 2, 2-4pm and April 17, 11am-1pm
– Youth Task Group: March 12, 3-5pm and April 17, 2-4pm

If you are not already a member of a Task Group and would like to join, please email IDEA Director Frank Geary (frank@ideaonline.ie) with your name, job title, organisation name and contact number. And please encourage your colleagues too!  

April 29, 2025
Wednesday 18 June, 10.00am - 4.00pm Wynn’s Hotel, Abbey Street Lower, Dublin 1
April 7, 2025
Last week, IDEA hosted the second webinar from our 2025 series, ‘Exploring Contemporary Crises and Issues through Global Citizenship Education, ' focusing on Palestine. If you missed out, you can watch the full video below!
April 4, 2025
At the end of March, IDEA staff and representatives from three IDEA members travelled to Riga, Latvia, for a two-day event marking the launch of IDEA’s Erasmus+ project with our partner LAPAS (Latvian Platform for Development Cooperation) focused on the IDEA Code of Good Practice The project’s core objective is to enhance the quality of global citizenship education (GCE) at local , national and European levels. Central to this work is the creation of a Code of Good Practice for Latvia based on learning from the IDEA Code that will support Latvian GCE practitioners, including teachers, NGOs, youth workers and others, by fostering a common understanding and approach to GCE. This represents the first piloting of the IDEA Code in an international context. The new IDEA task group for the project, made up of Code members, alongside IDEA staff, are supporting LAPAS members to adapt the Code for the Latvian national context by sharing our own experiences and learnings from the Code and GCE in Ireland. The event in Riga was the first in-person gathering of the project, bringing together LAPAS and IDEA members. This face-to-face interaction allowed us to begin the process of knowledge exchange, and mutual learning which will spread the Code’s reach and strengthen our GCE practice. IDEA was represented in Riga by Dean Oke (CDYS (Cloyne Diocesan Youth Service), Georgina Eastaugh (Concern Worldwide) and Claire Glavey (Global Village), alongside IDEA staff Elaine and Aine.