PEACEPLUS

PEACEPLUS Programme

PEACEPLUS is a new European Union funding programme designed to support peace and prosperity across Northern Ireland and the border counties of Ireland, building upon the work of the PEACE and INTERREG programmes.

PEACEPLUS Local Community Action Plan

The Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB) has provisionally allocated up to €17,433,277 to us for a Local Community Action Plan to fund community activities and infrastructure projects that help build peace and reconciliation in Belfast.

In recent months, we have worked with communities and partners across the city to further develop the plan for Belfast which will deliver projects on the following three themes:

• local community regeneration and transformation
• thriving and peaceful communities
• celebrating cultures and diversity

The development and submission of the plan is in three stages with Stage 1 and Stage 2 now complete.

We are now commencing Stage 3 of the process – Plan Submission.

Stage 1 engagement during June to December 2022 involved a number of online and public meetings including:

• area based and citywide meetings across the city
• one-to-one meeting with key stakeholders, where appropriate
• an e-survey

On completion of Stage 1, a report was published which identified 11 key concept areas to be included in the Local Action plan.

1. Arts
2. Capacity Building
3. Employability
4. Health and Well Being
5. Sport
6. Youth
7. Culture & Heritage
8. Ethnic Minority communities
9. Ex Politically motivated prisoners community
10. Faith and Church, Religion and Belief
11. LGBTQIA+

Since March 2023, we have been progressing Stage 2 to further develop the detail around these concept areas that stakeholders identified in Stage 1. This work involved:

• Public workshops to identify potential projects to be included in the local peace action plan submission;
• Setting up of 11 smaller working groups to develop the detail of the projects;
• Hosting a number of project planning sessions for each of the 11 concept areas;
• Having wider engagement with residents, local organisations, government bodies and potential beneficiaries of PEACEPLUS funding;
• Engaging with our Elected Members to seek authorisation to submit the local action plan to SEUPB.

We have now commenced Stage 3 of the plan which is working with SEUPB to complete the detailed application submission.

As part of our ongoing engagement process, we hosted two public information sessions to let stakeholders know what will be included in the local plan submission and how it will be delivered.

These were at Girdwood Hub and Riddel Hall in November.​

For further information on PEACEPLUS, email peacepluslap@belfastcity.gov.uk.

Prepare to Procure Capacity Building Programme

We held information sessions in May 2024 to help the community and voluntary sector understand public sector procurement and prepare for tendering. The sessions looked at:

• consortium development
• monitoring and evaluation
• our procurement system and social value procurement policy.

Local Community Action Plan networking event 

We held a networking event in City Hall on Tuesday 11 June at 10am. The event provided an overview of the PEACEPLUS Local Community Action Plan. Networking focused on the 11 concepts in ‘Thriving and Peaceful Communities’, ‘Celebrating Cultures’ and ‘Diversity’ themes of the plan.

More information about PEACEPLUS Programme

If you’d like to receive PEACEPLUS local community action plan email updates, send your details to: peacepluslap@belfastcity.gov.uk.

For more information on PEACEPLUS, go to PEACEPLUS (link opens in new window)