Please note that these pages relate to a research project that is now ended. Please follow this link to read more about more of our recent work.

Welcome to the ESDinds project website

We believe that the long term success and sustainability of a development project or social enterprise does not only depend on appropriate knowledge or observable behaviour, but also on peoples’ values and beliefs.

Values are often seen as intangible and until now have been overlooked in conventional project monitoring and evaluation activities.

The concept of the ESDinds Project is that ethical values can be measured, when locally defined, by using a combination of indicators based on perceptions and observable outputs, and that this information can help civil society organizations in their efforts to create successful and sustainable programs.

Take Part and Collaborate

We are inviting organisations and projects to join us in the next research phase, to experiment, trial and help develop values-based indicators in their own context.

For this phase have launched the WeValue web platform and online community which will also help us gather feedback and learn from each other. Go to the collaborate page to learn more!

Project Achievements to Date

During the first phase of the project, researchers worked with consortium members to identify core values perceived as most relevant to the CSO partners. The values identified were Trust, Integrity, Justice, Empowerment, and Unity in Diversity. A sixth value, Care and Respect for the Community of Life, was added later.

From January to March 2010, field visits were carried out to test the identified and developed indicators. The field visits also enabled CSO projects to adapt and modify the indicators according to their local context and inform the next steps of the project. After the first phase of fieldwork and testing, the Consortium is confident that, when contextualised, values can be measured.

The methodology has already been used successfully with five projects: an Earth Charter project for indigenous school children in Mexico, a Red Cross project for former child soldiers in Sierra Leone, a Mexican university, the Lush cosmetics company in Italy and Peoples Theater in Germany. View the field visit summaries in the Resources section.

The methodology has since been tested  and developed with various organisations and there is now a considerable body of practical experience on values-based indicators to discuss. Please link through to the WeValue website to for more information.