Development Education in Ireland – Challenges and Opportunities for the future

Development Education in Ireland: Challenges and Opportunities for the Future authored by Michael Kenny of NUI Maynooth and Siobhan O’Malley of Galway Rural Development was published during the early years of the internationally agreed seven Millennium Development Goals. The report sought to identify gaps, needs and opportunities in the sector for planning strategic interventions.

“The greatest difficulty we have in describing Development Education in Ireland in the present day is that the picture is so mixed. Measured in terms of activity there is a broad and significant network of groups active in promoting development education in both the formal and non-formal sectors, yet many of these groups are not confident of their impact, their sustainability or their place in the ‘bigger’ development education picture.”

The O’Malley Kenny Report (2002) by the Development Education Advisory Group (DEG), Dóchas

Among its recommendations was that the sector should take a leading role in developing a strategic plan that would ‘propose a vision that will unify and or sectionalise the development education sector.’

The formative discussions that arose from the ‘The ‘O’Malley Kenny Report’ led to the establishment of the Irish Development Education Association (IDEA), just one year after its publication.