IDEAS means "Independent Development Experts Association". IDEAS is a non-government organization (NGO) constituted under Swiss law.

Development cooperation is widely recognized as something necessary and important. However, very few know what is actually achieved in developmental projects. Information by developmental institutions is scarce, the direct effect of their work takes place in regions very distant from where decisions are taken and funds raised. Traditional mechanisms of democratic discussion and control do not sufficiently cover this constellation.
IDEAS wants to contribute to the improvement of quality, credibility and acceptability of development cooperation. IDEAS wants to help enhance the discourse on developmental issues by looking at development under new angles, and by making developmental issues more transparent and accessible to a wide public.

• IDEAS wants to observe and scrutinize development cooperation activities. Success and failures shall be publicly discussed.
• Facts, experiences by concerned groups, and indicators of success shall be collected and evaluated by professional teams.
• This shall help to get a process under way which helps to better understand and solve developmental problems.
• IDEAS wants to develop and promote transparent criteria as to what developmental goals should be, and how their achievement can be evaluated.
• Experiences and new concepts shall be tested and improved by applying them in pilot projects.

To start with, our association is primarily targeted at the work of Swiss development cooperation organizations. But it is our declared objective that this idea shall find counterparts and echo at an international level. 

No. IDEAS declares independence from any political, economic or religious entity. IDEAS shall, on the contrary, seek and enhance new impulses beyond such entities.

Some thirty years ago, at the end of the "colonial era", it was believed that "development" will be ensured if seemingly superior technologies and social structures are transferred from industrial countries to apparently "backward" countries of the South. Reasons for this were often simple concepts of one's own superiority, sometimes also simple perseverance of own short term interests. Later, the same concepts remained, but got new names, such as "technology transfer" or "sustainable development".

Today we may wonder why many countries are stuck in misery in spite of cooperation and development aid, while others seem to make progress, even if they receive little or no such aid.

Nobody can explain these differences and underlying forces in a satisfactory way. Hence, we all need to learn. Present forms of cooperation between wealthy and poorer countries and regions are still something relatively new, and often something harshly criticized. And yet, development cooperation is very important and necessary, for all concerned. We should never forget that "development" is something that never ends in any society and anywhere in the world. We all live in "developing countries".

We need new instruments to find out what this thing "development" is or can be, and to measure the success of development cooperation. We all will benefit from this. IDEAS wants to introduce such new instruments by applying standardized independent evaluation mechanisms and by enhancing the developmental discourse in a wide public, national and international. 

The IDEAS logo symbolizes the world as it was millions of years ago, before continents formed and drifted apart. We see a symbol in this that

• all continents, and all people have the same roots
• a world without change is impossible. And change brings about new issues and a need for new concepts.

The founding members: (from left to right)

Daniel Stiefel - Painter, Jan Stiefel - Agronomist, Thomas Waldmeier - Agronomist, Mimi Trüssel - Designer, Katherine Timmel - Biologist