Published: 4 February 2025
Last updated: 9 May 2025
One of President Donald Trump’s first actions in the White House was to freeze nearly all US foreign aid worldwide for three months, to assess all aid programs for "efficiency" and "consistency with foreign policy".
The move has caused chaos and confusion across the international aid sector, not least in the Middle East, although lifesaving humanitarian aid, including in Gaza, has been exempted, as has military assistance to Israel and Egypt.
Among those programs that have ground to a halt are the peacebuilding projects funded via the Middle East Partnership for Peace Act (MEPPA). The move brings to a halt most co-operative ventures between Israelis and Palestinians just as the Gaza ceasefire had allowed some to resume.
The timing also clashes with a push by UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to use the Northern Island model for resolving the conflict. Starmer served as human rights adviser to the Northern Ireland Policing Board, and witnessed the impact of the International Fund for Ireland (IFI), which provided massive funding of grassroots peacebuilding to shape the societal and political conditions leading to the Good Friday Agreement.
The Nita M. Lowey Middle East Partnership for Peace Act, known as MEPPA or the Lowey Fund, is a $250 million fund designated by Congress for projects that support peacebuilding, Palestinian economic development, and partnership. Almost all peacebuilding ventures in the region are funded, at least partially, through MEPPA.
The fund underwrites environmental joint ventures such as Ecopeace; health organisations such as Project Rozana; advocacy organisations such as the Parents Circle-Families Forum; as well as education, interfaith, technology, sporting and cultural organisations.
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