IDEAS means "Independent Development Experts Association" ; Association of Independent Development Experts. IDEAS is a registered association under Swiss law, Art. 60ff ZGB. The goals of IDEAS are to safeguard and increase the quality, transparency and acceptance of development cooperation and to stimulate development policy discussion. IDEAS wants to redefine development issues and bring them to the public. After the end of the colonial period, some thirty years ago, developed countries felt the need to bring seemingly "superior" technologies and social models to the "backward" peoples of the South. These activities were partly determined by self-interest, partly they were simplified ideas of their own supposed superiority. "Helping" later became "technology transfer" and "help for self-help".
Today it turns out that the conditions are far more complicated. And one wonders that many countries, despite abundant "help", are still in poverty or falling behind, while others who received little or no support seem to make progress.
So there is learning. The current forms of cooperation between rich and poor countries are still relatively new and often contentious. And yet the cooperation is something very necessary, even for ourselves. Because we should not forget that nowhere in the world is development really complete and everyone lives in developing countries, including us.
We see development cooperation as a long-term task that should evolve. So it also needs new tools to learn from experience and determine merits and failures soberly. This is not a task that can be delegated to an institution where it is then "managed". Both as a society and as individuals, we can grow from it. We consider the approach of an independent NGO to be particularly suitable. IDEAS wants to establish such an instrument through independent insight, fact evaluation and public discussion.
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