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The Need
for the Fund

The IFI was established as part of the work undertaken by the British and Irish Governments to restore peace in Northern Ireland in the 1970s and 1980s. It was founded on 18 September 1986 as part of an international agreement between the two governments (the Anglo-Irish Agreement23), and came into existence as an independent international organisation on 12 December 1986.

While the concept for the organisation was defined in the Anglo-Irish Agreement, its genesis drew on a wider process of international engagement and discussion.

This included a long and ultimately successful process of political lobbying to persuade the American administration that, whereas traditionally the resolution of the Troubles had been perceived as the sole responsibility of the United Kingdom, the United States should provide assistance for Northern Ireland.  Key driving forces in this effort were Nobel Laureate John Hume, Speaker of the United States Congress, Tip O’Neill, and other leading Irish-American politicians including Senators Kennedy and Moynihan, and Governor John Carey.  Irish politicians and diplomats in Dublin and Washington DC also played their part in this process.24

The primary objective underpinning the development of the IFI was to address the prevailing high rate of unemployment in Northern Ireland and the Border region; it was accepted by all of the high-level stakeholders involved that this economic disadvantage was increasingly intolerable, particularly in the context of the ongoing Troubles, and that a concerted effort was required to improve the situation.

Establishing credibility and neutrality in a deeply divided context

The IFI was constituted as a Fund under the control of an independent Board mandated to undertake projects using donations provided by the United States, European Union, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. As such, its creation signalled the commitment of both the regional governments and the international community to enable and support peace, economic stability, and progress in the region. Capitalising on this financial and political support, the IFI Board was equipped to provide an impartial, consistent, and transparent funding source to deliver support aimed at improving the conditions of local communities over the medium and long-term, through economic development, capacity-building, and peace building.

The independence of the Board is an important and distinguishing characteristic of the IFI; excluding exceptional circumstances, neither the British nor Irish Government has the power to interfere with the Board’s decisions. Over time, this unique model has enabled the IFI to assume as neutral a position as can be achieved in the deeply divided, highly politicised landscape of Northern Ireland, establishing constructive relationships with communities who may have previously rejected British or Irish-led interventions. Developing trust and a credible reputation, however, has not been an automatic outcome of the organisation’s structure. For the first decade of its operation, the IFI was viewed with considerable suspicion by the PUL community in particular – suspicion due, in part, to the organisation’s significant Irish-American backing, but predominantly because the Anglo Irish Agreement afforded the Irish Government an advisory role in the affairs of Northern Ireland. This negative and suspicious view ran deep, and was openly expressed by Unionist leaders not only verbally but in the regional printed press and in representations to Parliamentary committees25, to the extent that, for example, in 1995 the Chair of the Board had to publicly refute allegations of anti-Protestant bias made by a prominent Unionist politician.26 The IFI withstood these challenges, and by maintaining consistent practice, demonstrating the independence of the Board in all of its business, and keeping open lines of communication with both its funders and people it was established to support, it has successfully overcome political and grassroots hostility to deliver emphatically positive outcomes in marginal communities in both Nationalist and Unionist areas.

The regional landscape:
structural division and social disadvantage

By the time the IFI was established in 1986, social and economic development were severely impaired by the violence and disruption of the Troubles. In addition to the significant loss of life and injury (see Section 2 above), physical, social, and economic infrastructure had been seriously damaged. Many towns and villages had suffered urban decay due to the lack of investment from 1970 onwards and frequent bomb damage. Communities were locked in vicious cycles where social and economic disadvantage seemed to be both caused by and further fuel instability, political conflict, and, in turn, greater disadvantage.

Patterns of violence had engrained suspicion and mistrust between communities and undermined confidence in government and statutory agencies. Starkly defined physical and psychological boundaries between Nationalist and Unionist communities – evident in the 1950s and 1960s – were now entrenched. Areas characterised by low levels of employment, poor educational attainment, and limited social mobility endured the most intense levels of violence and segregation.

These deep divisions manifested not only as physical violence, but also in a pervasive sense of suspicion and mistrust that coloured all social, cultural, educational, and economic interaction. These dynamics affected both high density urban areas, where housing and public service provision was increasingly segregated, and rural areas, where the closure of cross-border roads for security reasons reinforced a feeling of separation and isolation for communities on both sides of the border, leaving many feeling cut off from friends and neighbours.

Economic disadvantage and unemployment

The negative consequences of segregation and infrastructural damage were compounded by prevailing high levels of poverty and low incomes. Historically, average gross weekly household incomes in Northern Ireland have always been below the United Kingdom average, and include a higher percentage of income support claimants. The question of how to define and measure the extent of poverty, however, is a political issue as much as it is a research question; the first ever large-scale quantitative study of poverty and social exclusion in Northern Ireland was only carried out as recently as 2003.27

This study showed that whereas administrative estimates in the 1980s suggested perhaps a quarter of all households in Northern Ireland were in poverty, by the early 2000s more than 185,000 thousand households could be described as poor, more than half a million people lived in poor households (at a time when the total population was just 1.6 million28), and more than a third (37.4%) the society’s children were being raised in poverty.29 It is important to remember that these findings were documented after the considerable reduction in daily violence secured by the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement of 1998, in the context of the comparatively strong post-Agreement economic performance in the region,30 and before the negative impacts of the global recession after 2008.

Despite relative buoyancy in 1960s and 1970s, from the mid-1970s onwards unemployment in Northern Ireland was chronic and pervasive:31 researchers have speculated on a correlation between the Troubles and job losses with as many as 46,000 jobs estimated to have been lost between 1970 and 1985 as a result of the violence. Unlike Northern Ireland, in the Irish border counties unemployment rates have only been available on a county basis since 1981, making it difficult to gauge unemployment rates in those areas during the early stages of the Troubles. However, statics from 1981 onwards indicate consistently higher rates of unemployment in the border counties than the Irish national average.32

For the leaders discussing the concept of the IFI in the early 1980s, the correlation between segregation, poverty, and the violence of the conflict at that time seemed clear: for example, the most segregated local council areas in 1985 were Belfast, Derry/Londonderry and Craigavon; these were also the areas most acutely affected by low income, unemployment, and conflict-related violence. In contrast, the least segregated councils were in the mainly rural areas in the Northwest, Northeast, and County Down; these areas were characterised by stable populations, low rates of intimidation, a low death rate, and mixed housing. It was in these circumstances that creating the conditions for both economic development and improved cross-community relationships emerged as key concerns.

Primary objectives of the new IFI

When the IFI was established its primary objectives comprised three key priorities as follows:

Creating economic opportunities

Focusing on disadvantage and need

Promoting contact, dialogue, and reconciliation

Deploying economic development as a tool for promoting positive engagement and reconciliation between the divided communities in Northern Ireland was a deliberate tactic underpinned by ethical, pragmatic, and strategic reasoning. First, one of the most acutely felt indicators of social injustice in Ireland at that time was unemployment; taking into account the prevailing high levels of economic inactivity, and in the wider context of violence and social disadvantage, engaging willing international support to channel investment into job creation was the right thing to do. Second, tackling unemployment by generating economic activity for communities in demonstrable need represented a politically neutral, or at least inclusive, focus: a pragmatic solution to at least some of the challenges they faced. Third, successful economic regeneration could also provide tangible evidence to people living in divided communities that working together for economic gain brings mutual benefits, and could create non-contentious points of common interest, contact, and sharing. And finally, to secure the confidence and longer-term commitment of international donors, economic projects by their nature would give rise to visible and quantifiable results and outputs.

In focusing on disadvantage and need, the IFI targeted areas characterised by persistent inter-generational unemployment, limited educational achievement, low levels of skills and qualifications, and poor health outcomes. In Northern Ireland, these indicators often tend to coincide with the influence – historical or current – of paramilitarism, whether Republican or Loyalist. In addition, where different communities are situated in towns or villages as neighbours, rigid segregation still dominates the landscape, in terms of both physical barriers or walls and unspoken patterns of behaviour. By 1995 over 70% of the Fund’s disbursements were invested in areas designated as disadvantaged. This proportion has been close to 90% since 2000. By working to positively transform the economic and social profile of these communities, the IFI aims to enable the flourishing of a fully peaceful and healthy society. In doing so, however, the IFI is realistic about the challenges and specifically the risks that working in these communities presents. Supporting young people into employment in the context of peer influences that include paramilitary coercion, for example, is never straightforward. This work is treated with the utmost care and seriousness, and the IFI has spent years developing trusted pathways and relationships in areas that, for a range of reasons, have persistently resisted similar engagement with statutory services.

In its 35 years of operation, the IFI has kept these key priorities under review, adjusting and adapting its strategic and operational frameworks to the changing political, economic, and social environment on the island. Section 4 below explores this evolution in more detail.

Summary

The environment in which the IFI was established was a world apart from the context we live in today. Deadly violence was a daily reality - in 1986, there were 61 Troubles related deaths - decisions in relation to services, infrastructure, and the economy were made by the UK Government in London, and the political landscape was deeply fractured and uncertain. The public imagination, both at home and abroad, had not yet envisioned a local government based on shared and agreed powers. The IFI constituted an entirely new and unique approach to addressing social challenges in this precarious environment. There was no blueprint for the establishment of this new organisation: it was the first cross-border body in Ireland (excepting the creation of the Foyle Fisheries Commission in 1952), and it preceded by a decade other independent funding mechanisms, such as the European Union INTERREG and PEACE Programmes. In the intervening period, the peacebuilding landscape has grown and diversified considerably. In this context, the IFI has functioned as both a pioneer and an innovator, keeping pace with change and adjusting its practice and focus accordingly.

Previous: Background: The Troubles
Next: Delivery and Impact
  • 23

    To see the full text of the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement, see: http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/events/aia/aiadoc.htm. 

  • 24

     See: McCreary, A. (2008) A Fund of Goodwill: The Story of the International Fund for Ireland. Belfast: International Fund for Ireland. [Available on request from International Fund for Ireland.]

  • 25

     Northern Ireland Affairs Committee. (1994) Minutes of Evidence Wednesday 23 November 1994. Employment Creation in Northern Ireland: The International Fund for Ireland. [Available on request from International Fund for Ireland.]

  • 26

     International Fund for Ireland. (1995) Commentary by Chairman, William T McCarter, on the Research Report presented by Jim Nicholson MEP on the work of the International Fund for Ireland. [Available on request from International Fund for Ireland.]

  • 27

     Hillyard, P., Kelly, G., McLaughlin, E., Patsios, D. & Tomlinson, M. (2003) Bare Necessities: Poverty and Social Exclusion in Northern Ireland. Belfast: Democratic Dialogue. [Available online at: http://www.poverty.ac.uk/sites/default/files/attachments/bare_necessities_0%5B1%5D.pdf]  (Accessed 4 September 2018)

  • 28
  • 29

     Hillyard et al (2003: 63).

  • 30

     Deloitte. (2011) Funding Change: External Reviews 1986-2010. (Page 7) [Available at: https://www.internationalfundforireland.com/publications] (Accessed 10 July 2018)

  • 31

     See: http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/ni/employ.htm#7; Gudgin, G. (1999) The Northern Ireland Labour Market, Proceedings of the British Academy, 98, 251-284.

  • 32

     Deloitte (2011: 7).

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