Press Release: Dublin Declaration a Milestone for Global Education

Global Citizenship Education at heart of tackling global challenges

The Irish Development Education Association (IDEA) welcomes the adoption of the milestone European Declaration on Global Education to 2050 by ministers from across Europe, at the European Congress on Global Education to 2050, #GE2050, hosted by Irish Aid in Dublin Castle today. The process leading to the adoption of the Dublin Declaration was co-chaired by Ireland and Luxembourg over the past 18-months. The Declaration was developed by GENE, the network of Ministries and Agencies with national responsibility for Global Education in European countries, with input from civil society, youth organisations, research and educational institutions and a number of global critical friends.


Speaking at the Congress, Frank Geary, Director of IDEA, said: ''We welcome the commitments by the ministers today towards achieving access to quality Global Citizenship Education (GCE) for all by 2050. This Declaration is a milestone for GCE and for education more broadly. It clearly positions GCE as central to developing the critical thinking, skills, attitudes, and values we need to tackle the many challenges ahead. It also provides a strategic framework that takes us beyond the United Nations’ Sustainable Development. Goals.


The Dublin Declaration recognises the importance of GCE in responding to the growing necessity to put global and local justice, solidarity, and other issues at the heart of education system reform, curricula, and learning. This is something that is already visible in Irish education – through the second National Strategy on Education for Sustainable Development, the Irish Aid Global Citizenship Education Strategy (2021-2025) and the plans to introduce a new Leaving Certificate subject on Climate Action and Sustainable Development in 2024.


Ireland has already been recognised at European and international level as a leader in GCE because of the quality of the organisations and programmes being run, and the support structures that are in place for the sector. We in IDEA look forward to playing our role in the further strengthening and growth of GCE both here and in Europe in the coming years.”​



Further Information:

  • IDEA, the Irish Development Education Association, is the national network for Global Citizenship Education (GCE) in Ireland representing over 90 organisations involved in the practice of GCE across the formal, non-formal and informal education settings.       
  • IDEA members include Development NGOs, such as Concern, Trócaire, GOAL, Plan International; youth organisations such as the National Youth Council of Ireland and the YMCA; community and voluntary organisations such as Comhlámh, Development Perspectives; educational institutions and networks such as the Centre for Human Rights and Citizenship Education in DCU, Dept of International Development Maynooth University, trade unions such as the Association for Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI), and other civil society organisations such as Children in Crossfire and Poetry Ireland. Full list of our members available here.
  • The Dublin Declaration (attached) was endorsed by Governments from across Europe. It will involve the European Union, the Council of Europe, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE). The European Commissioner for International Partnerships, Ms Jutta Urpilainnen, has already strongly endorsed the process.
  • In addition to Governments and International Organisations, the Congress and Declaration involved civil society and youth organisations, research and educational institutions and local and regional authorities


For additional information, please contact us


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 26, 2025
Date: 06 November a nd 18 November from 3.30–4.30pm Location: IDEA offices, 6 Gardiner Row, Dublin 1 Due to positive feedback following a workshop during our annual conference, we are thrilled to invite members to a full 2-part interactive workshop about “Racial Justice” on 06 November and 18 November. This event will take place in-person in Dublin. Our facilitators Bronwyn April and Mdahyelya Bassi will guide participants through a critical exploration of the interconnections between racial justice, philanthropy, migration, and decolonisation within global and Irish contexts. The workshop will delve into how historical and ongoing colonial legacies influence contemporary issues of racial equity and social justice in Ireland and beyond. The dates for this event are fast approaching, so if you have any specific accessibility requirements, please email events@ideaonline.ie as soon as possible. Places for this event are limited, and registration is mandatory. Deadline to register is Monday, 04 November. Register below!