Budget 2015: IDEA Response

Halt to Aid Cuts Welcome but Government Urged to Clarify Long-Term Aid Plan and Invest More in Public Awareness of Global Development

2015 a key year for Ireland’s involvement in global development.

Irish development education organisations have welcomed the Government announcement in Budget 2015 that cuts to Ireland’s aid programme have halted.  IDEA, the Irish Development Education Association, a national platform for NGOs and educators committed to education for global justice, is also urging the Government to sustain Ireland’s solidarity with developing countries and to outline a clear timeline for reaching the promise agreed by Ireland in front of World Leaders in 2000: to donate 0.7% of our Gross National Income (GNI) to Overseas Development.

“Ireland’s overseas development programme tackles the root causes of poverty and inequality. We welcome the stabilisation in ODA but if we want to achieve social justice at home and abroad, the government must put Ireland back on track to meet our commitment to the world’s poorest people and meet our target of 0.7% of GNI,” stated IDEA Director, Frank Geary.

2015 is a key year for Global Development with important decisions being made on Climate Change and the formation of a new set of Sustainable Development Goals. These decisions will affect Irish people. IDEA urges the Government to do more to engage the Irish public in critical discussion of, and involvement in, these global decisions. Ireland has historically been seen as a leader on the global stage in the area of overseas development. Recent public opinion surveys show that three quarters of Irish people remain committed to overseas aid in spite of our current circumstances. There is a strong consensus that Ireland has an obligation to invest in overseas aid. [1]

15/10/2014 Dublin.

Notes

The statement in the Budget is as follows: “For 2015, some €476 million is being provided through the International Cooperation Vote of the Department of Foreign Affairs. Combined with our share of the EU Development Cooperation Vote, and contributions from other Government Departments, this will bring our overall Official Development Assistance to some €600 million.” Source: http://budget.gov.ie/Budgets/2015/EstimateStatement.aspx#section10.5

The United Nations will meet to agree on a set of Sustainable Development Goals to replace the Millennium Development Goals which were agreed in 2000 and are due to have been achieved by 2015. The Climate Change Summit to be held in September in Paris will seek to achieve binding emissions limits to halt the impacts of Climate Change.For more on the UN SD Goals see: http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/?menu=1300


[1] July 2014 Ipsos MRBI Poll with 1,000 Irish people. 75% of respondents agree that people in Ireland have an obligation to invest in overseas aid, even in times of economic recession. http://bit.ly/MRBIResults

September 26, 2025
Date: Tuesday, 04 November, from 3.30–4.30pm Location: Online via Zoom IDEA is thrilled to invite members to the online launch of our new “Theory of Impact for Global Citizenship Education” on Tuesday, 04 November, from 3.30–4.30pm, Online via Zoom. During this session, we will present the model, share insights into the process behind its development, and explore how it will be used to strengthen impact across the sector. We will also introduce a new tool in progress, an interactive data visualisation map designed to showcase our collective impact as a network. For many years, IDEA and its members have been grappling with the concept of impact in Development Education/Global Citizenship Education (hereinafter ‘GCE’). As GCE practitioners, tracking impact helps us to identify how, where and with whom our work is creating positive change, as well as investigating areas in which our impact could be stronger. Furthermore, we can also benefit from examining the collective impact of GCE carried out by the wide-ranging work of IDEA members, and from exploring how these impacts contribute to the major social changes to which the GCE community aspires. Driven therefore by the need to understand how projects and programmes are collectively “making a difference” in IDEA we looked at models that could help us visualise and capture GCE “impact networks”. We formulated our vision of impact and then a theory of how we expect this desired impact to be achieved to allow us to map our activities and collect data to corroborate that theory. This Theory of Impact model is how we hope to illustrate this complex GCE impact network. Building on work done by IDEA over many years including building sectoral capacity in using Results Frameworks for GCE, our Quality & Impact working group, engagement with Irish Aid on their Performance Measurement Framework (PMF), and the successful roll-out of a Code of Good Practice for DE/GCE, this Theory of Impact represent the next stage of our effort to ‘develop a consistent approach to measuring impact among the sector’. We are therefore thrilled to invite you to the presentation of our ‘Theory of Impact for GCE’. At this online presentation, we will tell you about the process that led to the creation of this model, how it will be used and what we hope it could bring to the sector. We will also touch on a new tool being developed based on the model, which should allow the creation of an interactive data visualisation map of our collective impact as a network. Join us as we launch into this exciting new phase of our Impact Measurement work. Join us as we begin this exciting new phase of our Impact Measurement work. Register below!
September 26, 2025
Date: 11 November, 10.30am – 4.30pm. Location: IDEA offices, 6 Gardiner Row IDEA launched its new Advocacy Toolkit and GCE Policy Guide resource pack in early March. The advocacy toolkit and policy guide were developed for IDEA members to strengthen their capacity to effectively advocate with policymakers and to actively engage in policy processes on GCE in Ireland and the wider world. IDEA will facilitate a full-day in-person workshop on these resources in the IDEA offices on Tuesday, 11 November ,10.30am – 4.30pm. Places are limited to 20 participants and will be given on a first come, first served basis. Please note that this is a repeat of the workshop that took place in May and is aimed at members who did not have the opportunity to participate in May. A vegetarian lunch will be provided. Register below!
September 17, 2025
Date: Wednesday 26 November, 10.00am – 3.30pm 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 Wednesday, 26 November, 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. Register below!