The role of foreign aid in nurturing an atmosphere of trust, goodwill, and human security in Northern Ireland and the Border Counties

Protracted ethnopolitical conflicts around the world often arise from structural violence, marginalization, and the vulnerability of groups. In Northern Ireland, the Catholic Nationalist and the Protestant Unionist communities engaged in a prolonged conflict that led to the Troubles a period characterised by direct violence, social injustices, inequality, and bitter suffering. Foreign aid may be pivotal in facilitating cross community contacts, new relationships, understanding, and eventual reconciliation and peacebuilding although the liberal peace paradigm has been recently challenged. The International Fund for Ireland (IFI) and the European Union (EU) Peace III Fund were introduced to Northern Ireland and the Border Counties to facilitate socioeconomic development and reconciliation among the Catholic Nationalist and Protestant Unionist communities. This article explores the perceptions of 120 respondents about the impact of both funds in building trust, goodwill, and human security among both communities in Northern Ireland and the Border Counties. The study is based on data collected in the summer of 2010. The perceptions and images of 120 respondents are discussed in the wider context of peacebuilding and economic development in Northern Ireland and the Border Counties. This study concludes that building trust, goodwill, and human security is a generational process that requires patience, time, and resources to enable cross-community understanding, local ownership and the longterm sustainability of peace.