{"id":313700,"date":"2025-08-03T05:10:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-03T05:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/313700\/"},"modified":"2025-08-03T05:10:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-03T05:10:12","slug":"ni-community-projects-fear-closure-after-us-and-uk-funding-reportedly-pulled-from-peace-organisation-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/313700\/","title":{"rendered":"NI community projects fear closure after US and UK funding reportedly pulled from peace organisation \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A number of community and peacebuilding projects<\/a> supported by the International Fund for Ireland<\/a> (IFI) fear they will close due to the reported loss of vital funding from the US<\/a>. <\/p>\n

It also emerged this week that the UK government had pulled a promised \u00a31 million<\/a>, citing budgetary pressures. <\/p>\n

However, multiple organisations told The Irish Times their \u201cbigger concern\u201d was the halting of the US contribution to the peacebuilding and reconciliation body. <\/p>\n

The IFI said it had received financial support from \u201ca range of international donors including the US government\u201d and was seeking clarity and support from its US partners.<\/p>\n

The peacebuilding organisation was established by the British and Irish governments in 1986 to promote economic and social development and bring together nationalist, unionist and cross-Border communities. <\/p>\n

Since then, the IFI has spent \u20ac974 million supporting more than 6,000 projects, including efforts to remove peace walls and to prevent young people from being recruited or attacked by paramilitaries. <\/p>\n

The US government has traditionally been the IFI\u2019s largest funder. According to the IFI\u2019s accounts, its donations last year came from two sources, \u20ac2.5 million from the US and \u20ac5.5 million from the Irish Government. <\/p>\n

USAid, which administers foreign aid for the US government, was closed by president Donald Trump earlier this year. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Senator George Mitchell: Northern Ireland\u2019s peace must evolve. And if it is here to stay it must be sharedOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\"InIn February, Donald Trump’s administration cut USAid jobs. Photographer: Pete Kiehart\/Bloomberg via Getty Images <\/p>\n

It is not yet clear precisely how this will impact the IFI, but groups which deliver its projects in Ireland fear their funding will not be renewed at the end of this financial year. <\/p>\n

\u201cSince Donald Trump removed the USAid … they\u2019ve been more or less telling us we don\u2019t have any funding,\u201d said a representative of one community organisation, who asked to remain anonymous so as not to jeopardise their contract. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been told we should look for other funding if we want to keep the project going.\u201d <\/p>\n

Conal McFeely, of Creggan Enterprises, which has previously received IFI funding, said: \u201cWe\u2019ve been told the reason the IFI are now considering withdrawing is because they\u2019ve been choked of this funding from USAid, and they\u2019re out telling groups they\u2019re not going to continue their funding\u201d.<\/p>\n

Emphasising the \u201chighly significant\u201d role the body had played, he said it was \u201cinstrumental in bedding down the peace here and attempting to contain and settle the conflict. They\u2019re a key player\u201d.<\/p>\n

But he said \u201ca number of programmes, particularly in the Derry area, including here in Creggan, have been informed it\u2019s likely their programmes will not be funded beyond the current term, and they\u2019ve been told to consider winding the projects down. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a complete lack of alternative funders willing to take a risk … lots of those initiatives will unfortunately fall by the wayside,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n

Mr McFeely added it was \u201cextremely disappointing\u201d the UK government was \u201cwithholding its last [\u00a31 million] phase of funding, and that will have a detrimental impact on the ground here in terms of marginalised communities that are still dealing with the fallout from the conflict. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf the Irish Government is still prepared to put in money, why is the British government not matching that money? It\u2019s scandalous,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In a statement, the IFI said that it \u201chas received financial support from a range of international donors including the US government, the European Union, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and the UK. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are grateful for the long-standing support from all our partners, including the bipartisan support under various US administrations,\u201d it said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are continuing to engage with our US partners to seek clarity around support from the US government which will play a key role in the delivery of the IFI\u2019s programmes into the future.\u201d <\/p>\n

It said all projects currently funded by the IFI \u201cremain unaffected and their funding is secure as per their letters of offer\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cSupport from the US and others remains critical in our ability to deliver peace and reconciliation initiatives in Northern Ireland and the southern border counties,\u201d the body said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A number of community and peacebuilding projects supported by the International Fund for Ireland (IFI) fear they will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":313701,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[1144,16,15,978],"class_list":{"0":"post-313700","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-northern-ireland","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom","11":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114963115266237269","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313700\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}