Armed conflict dominates the international agenda in 2025.  As global and regional leaders once again struggle to address seemingly intractable conflicts, the lessons gleaned from 30 years of peacebuilding in Northern Ireland may offer insights for leaders and peacebuilders in other international contexts who strive to build their own paths to peace.

The Northern Ireland peacebuilding process began several years before the eventual Belfast/Good Friday Agreement in 1998.  Actors involved in supporting and funding peacebuilding projects included the Governments of the United Kingdom, Ireland, the United States and the newly established Northern Ireland Executive. The EU, as a political institution to which both Ireland and the UK belonged, played a significant role through its development of specialised EU programmes and funding supports that continue to this day. This explainer outlines the work of those programmes, and the lessons learnt from 30 years of EU peacebuilding in Northern Ireland.

The EU’s original Support Programme for Peace and Reconciliation in Northern Ireland and the border region of Ireland, known as ‘PEACE I’, was introduced in late 1994. Over 30 years later, the EU continues its support for making peace possible in communities where conflict once appeared intractable. Beginning with an initial €500 million allocation by the EU in a bid to make a practical contribution to the ceasefires, the initiative has unleashed a pioneering programme of innovative peacebuilding activities, from cross-community women’s networks to recycling initiatives and a Music Skills Development Centre. Funding was directed at initiatives that could provide tangible evidence of the potential opportunities arising from peace.  

The dividends from PEACE I generated confidence in the nascent peace process and, within five years, some 15,000 peacebuilding projects had received funding with the support of the EU, the Government of the United Kingdom, the Government of Ireland, and the newly established Northern Ireland Executive. Some examples of project case studies include the Cross Border Women's Network, Border Towns Retail Services Sector Initiative, and The Northern Ireland Film Commission. The support provided by the programme was designed to be inclusive, reaching into all communities, and enabling citizens to take risks together and maintain momentum for peace on the ground, even in times when political progress stalled.

This highlights an important insight to share from our experience in Northern Ireland; that peacebuilding begins years before peace negotiations. In Northern Ireland, the thousands of community projects funded before the formal political negotiation processes began, helped to create the necessary conditions in which political engagement could take place. They paved the way for the peace agreement.

After the success of PEACE I (1995-1999), support from the partners continued with PEACE II (2000-2006), PEACE III (2007-2013), PEACE IV (2014-2020) and the latest PEACEPLUS, which provides €1.14 billion in cross-border funding that will run from 2021-2027. The story of each programme can be viewed on a dedicated portal, which highlights how the focus of each iteration has evolved alongside wider political developments and societal changes. PEACE I aimed to stimulate momentum for peace by supporting relationship-building activities and addressing the immediate conflict, with many small grants focused on ‘hard-to-reach’ groups, such as victims of violence and politically motivated ex-prisoners. Following the peace agreement, PEACE II put greater emphasis on cross-border cooperation and economic development. PEACE III focused on reconciliation and on tackling sectarianism while PEACE IV expanded on this by including issues relating to integrated education and mental health support. 

The latest PEACEPLUS programme is more expansive that its predecessors, reaching into the heart of communities to address some of the most challenging ongoing issues and legacies of the conflict. This includes intergenerational trauma and the needs of victims and survivors, social cohesion and questions relating to the equality of access to skills, cross-border solutions to healthcare, environmental concerns, all-island transport links, and support for business, research, and rural development. Reaching this point nearly three decades after the peace agreement marks an important milestone in peacebuilding in Northern Ireland. It highlights how the EU’s PEACE programmes have moved Northern Ireland beyond the immediate consequences of the conflict and played a role in improving the overall wellbeing of society.

Clearly, the need to evolve and adapt is an important insight that those of us involved in peacebuilding programmes in Northern Ireland can share, as is the importance of sustained support from international champions. In every phase of Northern Ireland’s peacebuilding story, voices from abroad have pledged consistent and unwavering support, including from the US and the EU. The consistent presence of champions made our process more resilient, especially when it really mattered.

Rebuilding a society after conflict, as our peacebuilding process continues to do, requires a multifaceted, long-term and collective approach by authorities, as well as dedicated international partners. Immediate efforts to end violence are imperative but so too are solutions for more everyday challenges, such as infrastructure repair, unemployment, and provision of basic health and welfare services. Conflict does not just destroy the lives of those directly touched by it. It pressures the education system and the economy as a whole – the consequences of which can linger for decades. These challenges require leadership, economic support, and investment too. Northern Ireland is a positive example of a society rebuilding itself after years of violence, but it is also an example of successful infrastructural repair and development, economic recovery, social care, political and legal reforms, security and stability, and community relations required post-conflict. This is thanks in part to the PEACE Programmes.

These programmes have supported the development of infrastructure including buildings and bridges, known as Shared Space projects, most of which are in interface areas where there is historical tension between communities of differing backgrounds, for example the Peace Bridge over the River Foyle. Based on the recognition that peace exists in relationships, these kinds of shared spaces provide opportunities for relationships to grow, for prejudices to be dispelled, and for mutual understandings to develop. Support for shared spaces remain a centrepiece of our peacebuilding approach in Northern Ireland, while also providing a catalyst for socio-economic change in disadvantaged or isolated communities. 

Many of the projects funded by PEACE programmes work with our young people, underlining the importance of telling a story. Proactive development of positive narratives about how individual projects build support for peace have not always received the attention they deserve over the years. Sometimes we forget how far we have come as a society, even if the peace process in Northern Ireland is internationally recognised as one of the most successful peace accords. It is helpful to remind ourselves that overall success has been built on of thousands of individual stories – and insights can be gathered from all of them.

Despite progress, there can be no illusion about the difficulties we still face in Northern Ireland, including ongoing sectarian division, economic disparities, legacy issues, youth engagement, cultural identity, and collective trauma. These current challenges and past mistakes also provide insights from which others can learn.  For example, the temptation to overlook or ‘park’ contentious issues rather than tackling them early and often is both real and a risk that is best avoided. In Northern Ireland, we learned the hard way that unresolved problems do not disappear. We continue to deal with mental health crises and intergenerational trauma as a result.

This ongoing relevance and need for continued PEACE programmes is borne out in the evidence. Today, much of the PEACEPLUS programme focuses on Northern Ireland’s post-conflict issues, given that one in ten children experience anxiety or depression (around 25% higher than other UK jurisdictions). Research undertaken for the Northern Ireland Assembly underlines that one in eight children report having suicidal thoughts or having attempted suicide. Rates of suicide in children under 18 in Northern Ireland are disproportionately higher when compared to rates in the rest of the UK. This underlines an important reality, that peacebuilding is not just about infrastructure and economic repair. Supporting people must be at the heart of recovery. People need to be rebuilt too. 

The first 30 years of the PEACE programmes in Northern Ireland provide a repertoire of practical peacebuilding insights that can be shared with peacemakers in other conflicts. Each conflict situation is different, and approaches must be adjusted region to region. But, as we learned in our own process, experiences and insights from elsewhere can inspire ideas, help change thinking and demonstrably reassure people that others have been similarly stuck and managed to find a way through.  

Gina McIntyre is the Chief Executive of the Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB). SEUPB has the statutory remit for managing EU funding programmes within Northern Ireland and the border counties of Ireland, helping to foster peace and prosperity across the region. The current PEACEPLUS Programme is a €1.14 billion investment in support of the peace process and the development of a more sustainable and prosperous cross-community society and cross-border region.