IDEA Voices: Standing in Solidarity with Gaza as Global Educators

From the start of Israel’s genocide in Gaza more than two years’ ago, there has been a difficult and discomforting internal debate within the global education sector as to how it should respond. The sector has shifted somewhat from an initial collective silence that was broken by three members of IDEA (Centre for Global Education, Comhlámh and Síolta Chroí) who came together to organise online sessions that were extremely well attended and reflected strong support for a more robust sectoral response. These same three members subsequently established an IDEA Working Group on Palestine with the support of IDEA’s staff. It aimed to support education, discussion, collaboration and activism among IDEA members in solidarity with Palestine. The group succeeded in engaging affiliated members in discussion on Palestine and advocacy with the Irish government on passing the Occupied Territories Bill into law and calling for the withdrawal of the strongly criticised International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism. These initiatives were mostly confined to the Working Group, however, rather than actions taken by the network as a whole which created the sense that Palestine was confined to a silo.

There have been encouraging signs since that the network was becoming more engaged with Palestine when it supported calls for the Irish Central Bank to stop facilitating the sale of Israeli war bonds and called on the Irish government to join The Hague Group. Whilst these actions are welcome, I think they fall short of what we could and should be doing as a network to stand in solidarity with Gaza. From the beginning of the genocide, IDEA members should have been galvanised to join the monthly Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) national protests in Dublin that have drawn huge participation from citizens and civil society movements across the island. This was a minimal test of solidarity with Palestine that was failed. The network should (and still could) directly lobby the Irish government to implement in full the Occupied Territories Bill, particularly as the government is threatening to remove a ban on trade in services from any legislation that comes into law. The network should (and still could) call for the Irish government to stop the use of Shannon Airport as a transit point by the United States military in contravention of Irish neutrality. The network should (and still could) call on the Irish government to stop the sale of dual-use products to Israel that can have a civilian and military application.

In her latest report , Francesca Albanese, the UN rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian Territories, finds that Ireland has the largest dual-use trade with Israel in integrated circuits valued at $3.2 billion in 2024. She writes that ‘Gaza is a collective crime, sustained by the complicity of influential Third States that have enabled longstanding systemic violations of international law by Israel’. Ireland is one of the ‘Third States’ named in the report which in itself is evidence that perhaps we could have done more as a sector to end Irish complicity in genocide.

For many colleagues, the global education sector’s limited response to the genocide has provoked a deeper discussion on how many aspects of global education practice have shifted from their radical Freirean roots to a more professionalised and depoliticised form. From the vantage point as editor of a global education journal, Policy and Practice, I conducted a kind of vox pop earlier this year when I asked for short 500-word articles on ‘The Future of Development Education’. The collection included calls that the sector move beyond hospicing the broken neoliberal economic system by maintaining our largely uncritical support of the SDGs and embrace a stronger decolonial approach which does more to acknowledge that under-development is the result of capitalism, not development deficits in the global South. A decolonial education on the genocide in Gaza would have immediately framed it in the context of Israel’s settler-colonialism in Palestine. It would also have framed a sectoral response shaped by Freire’s call that global education means standing in solidarity with the oppressed.

In 2022, a report commissioned by the Centre for Global Education and Financial Justice Ireland found that ‘neither the international development nor the development education sector give anywhere near adequate attention to explorations with the public of the economic causes of poverty, inequality and injustice and of responses, through education, to the global neoliberal system’. The report bemoaned a lack of systemic thinking in the sector that is reflective of a technocratic or managerialist approach to development that fails to address the root causes of poverty and equality; the professed aim of our sector.

In applying a systemic analysis to the genocide in Gaza, the Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, immediately recognised that Gaza was a warning to the people of the global South. He wrote on X that the West ‘seeks to defend the bubble of consumption of the planet’s rich and not to save humanity, whose majorities are disposable to them, like the children of Gaza’. This explains the callous indifference of the Euro-Atlantic powers to the suffering of the Palestinians and their willingness to make a pyre of the conventions and norms of international law. Picking up on this, the journalist Chris Hedges wrote that:

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Improving your Results Framework Workshop 2026

October 7, 2026

Date: Thursday 12 November, 11.00am – 1.00pm Location: Online This workshop is part of IDEA’s support for the Irish Aid Global Citizenship Education Grants Round. It is the second of two distinct and complementary workshops developed by IDEA on ‘Results Frameworks for Global Citizenship Education’ that we are running this year. This session will be led by Susan Gallwey, independent consultant, and Elaine Mahon, IDEA. This session is focused on supporting those who are familiar with Results Frameworks and have begun work on the Results Framework for their application. This runs on Thursday 12 November, from 11.00am – 1.00pm, online via Zoom. Anyone new to Results Frameworks can attend the ‘Results Frameworks for Beginners’ workshop on Tuesday 2 November register here or watch a recording of a session from 2024 called ‘Results Frameworks for Beginners’, led by Susan Gallwey and Elaine Mahon, which is available here . Participants are invited to prepare for 'Improving Your Results Frameworks’ session as follows: a) Those participants from organisations who have previously submitted a Results Framework for Development Education/Global Citizenship Education to Irish Aid should be familiar with their existing Results Framework. Before the event they will be asked to share (with the trainer and IDEA) an outcome and associated indicators that is working well and also identify an outcome and associated indicators that posed some challenges. b) Those participants from organisations who have NOT previously submitted a Results Framework for Development Education/Global Citizenship Education to Irish Aid and/or people who are new to Results Frameworks should first attend/ view the session Results Frameworks for Beginners here . IDEA provides support for members - and spaces for members to support one another - in applying for Irish Aid Global Citizenship Education Grants. This training and support is free of charge to all and offered online. As in recent years, this year we also invite any other actors who are not yet members of IDEA to these training events. The training is based on content from IDEA’s toolkit ‘Results Based Approaches to Development/Global Citizenship Education’. While created to reflect Irish Aid’s Results Framework for Development Education Grants rounds, the approach outlined in the toolkit can be applied to many other Development Education settings. In 2024, IDEA recorded a session which goes through Results Frameworks for Beginners. This was published on IDEA’s YouTube channel in November 2024 and is available here .

Results Frameworks for Beginners Workshop 2026

October 7, 2026

Date: Tuesday 03 November, 2.00 - 4.00pm Location: Online This training supports practitioners to understand monitoring and evaluation for Development Education/ Global Citizenship Education projects. It is an introduction to result-based approaches and will support those who are new to this type of framework in DE/GCE contexts. This training will take participants step by step through the process of building an effective results table to reach the change you want to achieve, within the timeframe of your project. It will also introduce participants to the terminology associated with Results Frameworks including Goal, Outcome, Indicator, targets, Baseline, Results and so on. This workshop will integrate learning from IDEA’s GCE impact framework and will also talk through Irish Aid’s approach to monitoring and evaluation for GCE. This workshop will also support those who are planning to apply for the Irish Aid Global Citizenship Education Grants Round for 2027. The online training will be led by Susan Gallwey, independent consultant, and Elaine Mahon, IDEA. IDEA provides support for members - and spaces for members to support one another - in applying for Irish Aid Global Citizenship Education Grants. This training and support are free of charge to all. As in recent years, this event is open to those who are not yet members of IDEA. The training is based on content from IDEA’s toolkit ‘Results Based Approaches to Development/Global Citizenship Education’. While created to reflect Irish Aid’s Results Framework for Development Education Grants rounds, the approach outlined in the toolkit can be applied to many other Development Education settings. In 2024, IDEA recorded a session which goes through Results Frameworks for Beginners. This was published on IDEA’s YouTube channel in November 2024 and is available here .

IDEA signs citizenship statement and encourages organisations to support

October 6, 2026

IDEA has signed a joint civil society statement, We build Ireland together: Citizenship is how we make that official, and encourages other organisations to lend their support. Led by the Irish Refugee Council, the initiative calls on Minister for Justice, Jim O’Callaghan, to withdraw proposals that would make it harder to gain Irish citizenship. The statement argues that citizenship recognises the belonging of people who put down roots here through working, studying, raising families, paying taxes and contributing to community life. It warns that granting citizenship only to people with a high income and no experience of hardship risks treating some people as more deserving of belonging than others. It also raises concerns about the proposals alongside wider changes to family reunification, income requirements for migrant workers and international protection. Taken together, the statement warns, these measures make it harder for migrants, people seeking protection and refugees to build secure lives in Ireland. IDEA members including AkiDwA, ActionAid Ireland, Africa Solidarity Centre Ireland, Comhlámh and Síolta Chroí have signed, alongside organisations from across civil society. IDEA’s support reflects the emphasis in Development Education and Global Citizenship Education on human rights, equality, solidarity and participation in society. It is also an expression of solidarity with colleagues, educators and communities who could be affected by these proposals. People who put down roots here and contribute to our communities should have a fair opportunity to gain citizenship and the security and recognition it brings. The statement calls on the Minister to focus instead on building a cohesive society that recognises the people who live, work and build Ireland together. To find out more or add your organisations support please get in touch through IDEA or the Irish Refugee Council direct.

IDEA calls for GCE to be included in Northern Ireland’s new curriculum framework

October 6, 2026

IDEA calls for GCE to be included in Northern Ireland’s new curriculum framework IDEA recently shared its views on the new draft Northern Ireland Curriculum Framework as part of the public consultation, which closed on 30 September. Our submission welcomed the framework’s aim to give learners “access to powerful knowledge and develop the skills needed to participate fully in society, the economy and civic life.” However, we also highlighted a key gap: “global” has been dropped from the scope of citizenship education within the curriculum. Global Citizenship Education (GCE) is not mentioned at all. Alongside an important focus on the local reality in the North, we consider it vital that the curriculum also addresses the global reality. As UNESCO puts it, “economically, environmentally, socially and politically, we are linked to other people on the planet as never before” (UNESCO, 2026). We recommended integrating key dimensions of GCE and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) into the framework without creating a new strand or making widespread amendments. Changes to the language and framing could embed GCE and ESD principles in the core capabilities and in subjects such as Geography, History, English and Drama, and Personal, Social, Civic and Careers (PSCC). Our recommendations echoed the key asks of the CADA submission . IDEA also contributed to that submission through a focus group discussion and by reviewing and providing feedback on the draft. Our recommendations were to: Include GCE and ESD as concepts in the capabilities document and cross-reference them in the subjects for Geography, History, English and Drama and PSCC. Include the concept of global citizenship in the capabilities document and in PSCC, as a distinct but complementary concept to citizenship and civic understanding. Include the concepts of solidarity, justice and local-global interconnection and interdependence (and thus shared responsibility) in the subjects English and Drama and PSCC. Increase the progression of human rights knowledge in PSCC across Stages towards its global application by Key Stage 3. Add shared responsibility and justice as key dimensions of sustainable development and global inequality to the environmental and ecological responsibility capability, as well as to Geography. Include addressing misinformation, disinformation and factchecking under the language and communication capability and in English and PSCC. Build on Northern Ireland’s experience of peace education by including opportunities, particularly in History and PSCC, for pupils to explore connections between peace and reconciliation locally and globally as part of GCE and ESD. Thank you to IDEA members who reviewed our submission and provided feedback. You can read our full submission here .

Code Network Meeting December 2026

September 26, 2026

Date: Tuesday 01 December, 10.00am – 4.00pm Location: Richmond Barracks, Inchicore, Dublin 8, D08 YY05 IDEA is looking forward to welcoming all members of the Code of Good Practice for Development Education to our next Code network meeting on Tuesday 1 December, in Richmond Barracks in Inchicore, Dublin. There are places for two representatives, staff, volunteers, etc., from each Code member. One of the commitments in joining the Code is to contribute to the Community of Practice for this Code, including sharing successes and learning with other Code members and attending at least one of two Code network meetings annually. If you have questions, please contact code@ideaonline.ie.