Poverty in Northern Ireland has been a significant issue for the last 20 years, and the lack of an Anti-poverty Strategy has left us with an ever-widening gap to help those most in need.  In June 2025 the Executive Office launched their proposed Anti-poverty Strategy and to say it was disappointing would be an understatement.  It was not a strategy.  This is simply not good enough for the people of N.I.  There are no clear targets, no clear objectives every expert, every oversight body is clear that a strategy must include measurable and time bound targets within or alongside the strategy.

The community & Voluntary sector has done extensive research into the impact of poverty and we urge the Executive to meaningfully engage with the huge volume of research that has been produced by the Independent Expert Advisory Panel (2020), the Anti-Poverty Strategy Co-Design Group (2022), the Welfare Reform Mitigation Review (2021), the Discretionary Support Review (2022) and the hundreds of pages of Northern Ireland specific evidence produced by organisations and academics that provides clear evidence of the interventions that work to tackle poverty.

We need a strategy that will alleviate the pressure, that will focus on the actual issue and give clear recommendations on how to help those most in need, simply put the Executive needs to trust the work that grassroot organisations have been focused on eradicating for the last 20 years.

The Community & Voluntary sector have seen first hand what the Pandemic, Austerity and a Cost of Living Crisis has done to the families of N.I and they have worked and will continue to work tirelessly to help alleviate some of the burden.