Dear IDEAS members and friends,

As we are now in the early days of 2010, I want to wish to each of you a wonderful new year that will include good health, good work, and much that you can be proud of.

I also want to take this moment to give you a sense of the direction of IDEAS in 2010 and what will be important for us to accomplish.

First, we will have to work hard to first decide on the location of our planned 2011 Global Assembly and then to set the agenda. As this 2011 Global Assembly will come early in 2011, we have much of the work to do this year--2010--to make it a reality and to make it a success. I hope to welcome many of you to this Global Assembly. It will be our fourth--the first in Beijing in 2002, the second in New Delhi in 2005, and the third in Johannesburg in 2009. I can tell you that we are exploring holding this Assembly in Amman, Jordan, but this is not yet certain. We are also again exploring scholarship support so that more of you are able to attend. For the Johannesburg Assembly this past year, we were able to arrange more than 100 scholarships from a number of supportive donors.

Second, we strive to strengthen member services. Each of you has joined IDEAS because you believe it is important. I and all the members of our board are striving to ensure that IDEAS can help you professionally, intellectually, and in building up the development evaluation community world-wide. In this regard, we continue to welcome your inputs to our web-site, to contribute book reviews, to provide papers in draft so others can provide comments and suggestions, and to post job opportunities for others. We are a vibrant international community. We have to work hard to sustain this special professional space and professional commitment.

Third, I want to alert all of you that we are working to produce a book that collects many of the key papers from our last Global Assembly in Johannesburg. This book will be a selection of original papers that address the theme of evaluation capacity building (ECB). The literature on evaluation capacity building is sparse. IDEAS is making a concerted effort to provide intellectual content to this relevant topic and to identify strategies that appear to work in building ECB. This book will be published in the Fall, 2010, by the World Bank. I will alert all of you when it is available.

Finally, I would ask for your energy, your involvement, and you input on how we might expand our reach and build a still stronger community. I would also ask that each of you make an effort to help IDEAS--bring others to join us, think yourself of joining our Board, and give your intellectual talent.

Thank you, each one of you, for your commitment. We are collectively building a strong international evaluation organization. IDEAS gets no organizational subsidy and no free office space. All that we accomplish we accomplish on our own!! We are now close to 1000 members and in more than 100 countries!!

I am optimistic that 2010 will be a great year for IDEAS. Welcome aboard!!

Sincerely,

Ray C. Rist
President of IDEAS (2009 - 2011)