Among the strategic objectives to accomplish its mission, IDEAS works “to contribute to professional knowledge, ethics, conceptual thinking and standards in international development evaluation”, and “to enhance the capacity of its members and international development evaluators in general”. It is widely understood by the Association that contributing to the professionalisation of Evaluation IDEAS widely serves its members.
IDEAS has systematically worked in this direction, with strong leadership of Linda Morra Imas.
Early initiatives, as from 2009, have culminated in the publication and adoption, in 2012, of the Competencies Framework for Development Evaluation Evaluators, Managers, and Commissioners.
In parallel with the development of the Competencies Framework, the IDEAS Code of Ethics was developed and adopted by members in 2014. Both were developed by multicultural working groups with a truly global perspective.
Following numerous conversations in different professional contexts, IDEAS has also put efforts on the subjects certification and qualification, and, lately, in the development and implementation of a more ambitious project, the International Evaluation Academy (IEAc).
THE INTERNATIONAL EVALUATION ACADEMY (IEAc)
Item 5 of the Prague Declaration, “Support for professionalization and capacity development”, states:
“We advocate a transformational change of evaluation itself. We will support efforts to bring knowledge and capacities to commissioners, evaluators, development partners and the diversity of stakeholders who can and do contribute to the practice of development evaluation throughout the world.
We support the development of an international evaluation academy to advance professionalisation and promote the interaction between science, research and evaluation to enrich our profession and our efforts to support evaluation capacity at all levels.”
A workshop held in the 2019 Conference in Prague, facilitated by Linda Morra Imas, acted as a first consultation with the community of evaluators, allowing for the preparation of a initial Concept Note. A Survey was launched on January 2020, registering wide interest. The IEAc Survey Summary Report is available for your appreciation and comments.