N Ireland gets ‚€200 million Christmas present
Howard Lake | 22 December 2005 | News
Following the EU budget negotiations last week a further ‚€200 million has been secured for Peace III (or the Special Programme to Support Peace and Reconciliation in NI and the Border Counties). It was thought that the second round of EU funding (Peace II) would be the last for this programme.
The money will be available for the 2007-2013 period, which will coincide with the end of the current Peace II extension.
‘Peace money’ currently supports hundreds of projects and thousands of jobs in the community sector in Northern Ireland and the border counties. The amount of money is roughly half of what is available in the current extension and so the task for the sector will be to argue about where the money is spent and on what priorities.
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Consultations on priorities for the new funding will begin in 2006. In response to political developments within Northern Ireland during 1994, notably cease-fire announcements by the IRA and the Combined Loyalist Military Command (CLMC), the European Union approved a Special Support Programme for Peace and Reconciliation in Northern Ireland and the Border Counties of Ireland. The “Peace Package” which was formally agreed on 28 July 1995 sought to cement peace building activities and enhance grassroots projects by “promoting social inclusion of those at the margins of economic and social life” and through exploiting “the opportunities and addressing the needs arising from the peace process in order to boost economic growth and stimulate social and economic regeneration”.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.