The North's voluntary sector has praised the EU's Peace and Reconciliation Programme, but has recommended that the number of bodies handing out the money be reduced to ensure a more "focused" approach.
Under the scheme, close to £240 million has been distributed since 1995 among 12 counties - in Northern Ireland and Border counties in the Republic. Funding has also been approved for a further two years.
A report on the programme was published yesterday by the Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action (NICVA), an umbrella body for voluntary organisations. Its director, Mr Quentin Oliver, described it as "a success story".
He did admit there had been "some good examples of bad decisions" and mentioned horse-breeding and salmon farming schemes which had received money from the fund. "There is agreement that some bad decisions were made, but 90 per cent of it was great," said Mr Oliver.
Voluntary and community organisations were particularly impressed with the development of district partnerships, which involved local councillors, business, trade union and voluntary sector representatives, he said.
It had encouraged a form of local democracy and "this was really inspirational. It was actually a sort of a European experiment, which they thought we weren't ready for. But they are really impressed that it succeeded here and they now want to re-import this model back to other European countries," he said.
The NICVA report recommends a "refocusing" of the programme to address issues in a strategic way. The money is currently distributed by a large number of different bodies, including government agencies, "intermediary funding bodies" and the district partnerships.
"What we are saying is that there is a bewildering array of distribution bodies, and there may be a case for rationalising the large number of them," said Mr Oliver.