The Portland Trust is a private 'not-for-profit' UK foundation whose purpose is to the promotion of economic development as a way of engendering peace and stability between Palestinians and Israel.
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The Trust was founded in 2003 in London by Ronald Cohen, Harry Solomon, Martin Gilbert (a historian) and David Freud, (a former UBS banker). David Freud is also the Trust's chief executive.[1]
Its focus is on initiatives to help develop the private sector particularly in the Palestinian Territories where it hopes to identify economic 'bottle-necks' and then use its expertise to relieve them. These economics bottlenecks often involve security related issues. When a possible solution has been identified the Trust seeks support and commitment from a wide range of interested parties. Special efforts being made to identify appropriate sponsors and mobilize the funds needed.[1]
Three strands of development have been identified:
The Trust works on a range of initiatives with the following partners
The Trust has offices in the UK (London), Israel (Tel Aviv: Eival Gilady is the Managing Director) and Palestine (Ramallah: directed by Samir Hulileh).[1]
The Telegraph raised concerns about this Charity's high salaries ("Staff at the Portland Trust are also among the best-paid charity workers in Britain, each employee receiving, on average, a six-figure salary"), "lack of transparency" in its accounts and "scant details" of what the charity had actually done. It also noted links between its founders and the UK Labour Party.[2]