Donors
IDEAS was launched thanks to crucial support from donor organisations and has subsequently received financial support from many institutions. From 2009 on, IDEAS set up biennial Global Assemblies that were well funded by donor contributions, allowing evaluators from all over the world to attend these events. IDEAS also received grants for publications and its work on professionalisation. Over time, donor involvement has shifted and, although a full historical overview of donor support for IDEAS has not yet been assembled, it is imperative to acknowledge how funding provided by so many organisations has enabled the growth of the global development evaluation profession. There has been great appreciation for this support amongst the members.
IDEAS owes its most profound gratitude to all those who have contributed to IDEAS along these years.
Partners
IDEAS has partnered with many organisations over time and feels encouraged to continue to do so, due to the fruitful experience they have allowed for, practicing what is preached in the Sustainable Development Goals, given the important role foreseen for partnerships to achieve sustainable and equitable development.
Partners for capacity development
For many years, IDEAS continued to promote and support training, in particular the International Program for Development Evaluation Training (IPDET) as well as regional offerings of this training program, e.g. the European Program for Development Evaluation Training (EPDET), the Shanghai International Program for Development Evaluation (SHIPDET) and the Latin America and the Caribbean regional IPDET course.
Partners for the conceptualization of relevant documents
In partnership with IOCE, UNEG and UN Women, IDEAS facilitated a global consultation to shape the Evaluation Agenda 2016-2020, addressing a question on the three most important strategies to ensure that individual evaluators have the capability to produce good quality, context relevant, equity focused, and gender responsive evaluations. This consultation was also posted on the Eval-Partners link and circulated globally. IDEAS actively participated in the writing of the Global Evaluation Agenda.
Partners for the promotion of high-quality evaluations
The Evaluation for Transformational Change Award Competition
In 2019, the Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD (IOE), the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) of the World Bank Group, and the International Development Evaluation Association (IDEAS) announced the Evaluating Development Interventions for Transformational Change Award competition.
This biennial award recognizes outstanding evaluations of development interventions that promote or result in transformational change and are explicitly linked to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The award is in recognition of the growing international understanding that transformational change is needed for our societies, economies and our relationship with the environment to become sustainable.
The strength of these partnerships is also evident in the realization of the biennial Conferences and Global Assemblies.
Partners for the realization of biennial Global Assemblies and Conferences
The 2015 Global Assembly
The Conference Evaluating Sustainable Development combined the 2015 Global Assembly and the Fourth International Conference on National Evaluation Capacity, convened by IDEAS and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and its Independent Evaluation Office (IEO), partnering with the Government of Thailand and the UNDP Regional Bureau of Asia and the Pacific. The 2015 Global Assembly took place from 26-30 October 2015 at the Millennium Hilton Hotel in Bangkok, Thailand. Running these two conferences in parallel enabled synergies and joint meetings. It maximized attendance from evaluators. More than 400 participants from both conferences enjoyed several joint sessions, in which NEC participants benefited from professional evaluator's assessment of the SDG challenges and IDEAS in turn benefited from government perspectives on evidence-based policies and the role of evaluation. Keynote plenaries were held jointly with the NEC conference, thus providing inspiration for both conferences.
The 2017 Global Assembly
The Joint Conference Evaluation for the Sustainable Development Goals: transforming life through global and regional partnerships, with an emphasis on Latin America and the Caribbean, was held in the University of Guanajuato, Guanajuato, Mexico, from December 4-8, 2017. It was convened by the global association of development evaluators IDEAS and two regional networks – RELAC and REDLACME. It was hosted by no less than six local and regional organisations, amongst them the Government and the University of Guanajuato; the CLEAR Centre for Latin America; and CONEVAL, the National Council for Evaluation of Social Development in Mexico. The Conference was preceded by 22 well attended pre-conference workshops, twelve in Spanish and ten in English. The Joint Conference itself took place from 6 - 8 December and was attended by 544 participants from 60 countries. Premium activities included the launching of the book Evaluation for Agenda 2030, edited by Rob D. van den Berg, Indran Naidoo and Susan D. Tamondong, and the CLEAR Latin America and the Caribbean Graduate Thesis Prize Award ceremony.
The 2019 Global Assembly
The Conference Evaluation for Transformative Change: Bringing experiences of the Global South to the Global North, which combined the 2019 IDEAS Global Assembly and the Third International Conference on Evaluating Environment and Development, was jointly organized by IDEAS, the Independent Evaluation Office of the Global Environment Facility (GEF/IEO) and the Earth-Eval Community of Practice, and the Czech Evaluation Society (CES). It was held Hotel Duo Prague in Prague, Czech Republic, 30 September-4 October 2019. Premium activities included: the inauguration of the Evaluation for Transformational Change Award, itself a partnership between the Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD (IOE), the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) of the World Bank Group, and the International Development Evaluation Association (IDEAS); the launch of the book Evaluation for transformational change: opportunities and challenges for the Sustainable Development Goals, edited by Rob D. van den Berg, Cristina Magro, and Silvia Salinas Mulder. The book is an IDEAS publication, available for download and for print on demand at Amazon.com. A grant from Universalia enabled this publication.