Supporting Civil Society Peacebuilding
International Fund for Israeli-Palestinian Peace
The case for multilateralism
Why did peace succeed in Northern Ireland but collapse between Israelis and Palestinians? Both were considered deep, “intractable” conflicts over territory and national identity. Both saw intensive diplomatic negotiations in the 1990s. They even had some of the same negotiators. Yet, the peace process in Northern Ireland had one thing the Middle East has never had, something which the U.K.’s chief negotiator Jonathan Powell called “the great unsung hero of the peace process:” The International Fund for Ireland (IFI).
How and why did it work? Scale and leverage were certainly big factors. Combining funds from multiple donors, including the United States, United Kingdom, and European Union, enabled the IFI to deliver and unlock over $2.4 billion in total peacebuilding investments on the ground. But the structure was equally important. By concentrating funds and efforts through a single international institution, the IFI and the programs it supported gained vastly greater leverage, credibility, efficiency, expertise, sustainability, and impact as they strategically built a long-term infrastructure of peace.
International Fund Strategy
How an International Fund Helped Make Peace in Northern Ireland
Statements of Support for an International Fund
An International Fund for Israeli-Palestinian Peace
There are 13.5 million Israelis and Palestinians living in the region, yet the international community is spending less than $3 per person, per year, towards peace in the region. By comparison, to achieve a sustainable peace in Northern Ireland, the international community spent over a billion dollars over two decades. This averaged spending of $44 per person, per year—starting twelve years before a peace deal was reached—is almost ten times the amount invested in similar efforts between Israelis and Palestinians. This investment occurred through a multilateral funding mechanism called the International Fund for Ireland (IFI), created by the U.S. Congress and funded by public and private entities across the world.
Inspired by the IFI, and pioneered by the Alliance for Middle East Peace (ALLMEP), there is an urgent need for the creation of an International Fund for Israeli-Palestinian Peace (IFP), in order to provide the robust, long-term funding that the peacebuilding field needs to achieve genuine societal change.
This vision for a coordinated approach to peacebuilding has been codified by US and European allies in the June 2024 G7 Leaders’ Communiqué, following a global campaign led by ALLMEP. Each G7 member has now pledged to “coordinate and institutionalise support for civil society peacebuilding efforts as part of a larger strategy to build the foundation necessary for a negotiated and lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace.” This historic shift was supported by EU and UK parliamentarians from across the political spectrum, as well as 350 civil society organizations from around the world.
Following the G7 policy shift, the Prime Minister of the UK, Keir Starmer, pledged his support for the establishment of an International Fund for Israeli-Palestinian Peace in December 2024, and announced plans for the Foreign Secretary to convene an “inaugural meeting in London to support civil society in the region, as part of that work to negotiate a two-state solution.”
ALLMEP’s advocacy for this game-changing project is at its most advanced stage to-date. All the while, ALLMEP continues to amplify the voices of Israeli and Palestinian peacebuilders, increasing their profile and raising support for their work and our shared agenda among policymakers right around the world.
