Top Recommendations for MEPPA’s Second Year:

In June, Avi Meyerstein, Founder and President of ALLMEP, and Brian Reeves, Director of Development and Regional Advocacy at ALLMEP, produced a paper titled “Amid Crisis, Peacebuilding Advances With Smart Donor Strategies: Top Challenges And Opportunities In MEPPA’s Second Year” for Mitvim. 

The paper presents three key recommendations for international governmental and philanthropic donors to help scale civil society peacebuilding as MEPPA continues into its second year.

• 1/Defend: Stand up for civil society

The first recommendation is to defend and stand up for civil society. Allies should emphasize to Israeli and Palestinian governments that actions against NGOs would harm their own national interests.

• 2/ Amplify: Spread the impact

Second, is to amplify and spread the impact of NGOs. The battle to marginalize civil society and stigmatize peacebuilders is significant. International governmental donors must amplify civil society voices, promote initiatives, and challenge negative narratives.

• 3/ Scale: Strategically multiply the work and results

The third key recommendation is to scale and strategically multiply the work and results. Initiatives like MEPPA present opportunities for increased impact and coordination among funders, paving the way for future higher-impact solutions.

Beyond the three main recommendations, the paper also presents a full spectrum of specific actions for donor governments and private philanthropy to consider and implement. As a coalition of over 160 organizations building people-to-people cooperation and coexistence, and as the leading advocate behind the passing of MEPPA, ALLMEP possesses unique insights and access to understand the support most helpful to civil society peacebuilders and to maximize the impact of donors’ contributions.

1. Adopt agile investment strategies to support new initiatives, help programs expand in new directions, and support projects when government grants end.
2. Support worthy projects that aren’t receiving attention from initiatives like MEPPA, e.g. those dealing with political aspects of the conflict, non-liberal audiences, uninational work.
3. Fund pilot projects that have the potential to be scaled up in the future, and match grants to existing US-funded projects.
4. Facilitate partnerships among NGOs, creating more resilient projects and initiatives.
5. Allocate resources to capacity building initiatives for NGOs, on program design, financial management, and other essential aspects to maximize their effectiveness.
6. Support efforts to mobilize program alumni, cultivating a connected constituency of peace advocates.
7. Coordinate, and institutionalize coordination, between donor states and foundations to leverage this moment and achieve long-term, conflict-sized impact.

Read the full paper here: https://mitvim.org.il/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Amid-Crisis-Peacebuilding-Advances-with-Smart-Donor-Strategies.pdf