Physical reconstruction alone will not restore Ukraine. Evidence from war-torn Irpin shows that without deliberate investment in civic trust, bricks and mortar risk becoming monuments to elite capture rather than pillars of democratic recovery.
The German Platform for the Reconstruction of Ukraine recently hosted the event Reconstructing Trust: Social Cohesion and Recovery in War-Torn Irpin. Researchers Niklas Balbon (Global Public Policy Institute) and Constantin Groll (Friedrich Ebert Foundation) presented ground-level findings that carry urgent implications for every international cooperation professional working on Ukraine’s future.
Two Worlds of Trust
The research reveals a striking paradox: Irpin’s residents have grown closer to each other while drifting further from their institutions.
Horizontal solidarity, the trust among neighbors, remains strong. A majority of surveyed residents reported increased mutual support and unity since the full-scale invasion began. This community resilience is a genuine asset that recovery architects must actively protect and amplify.
Vertical trust tells a completely different story. Approximately 81 percent of respondents perceive local authorities as the primary beneficiaries of reconstruction initiatives, not ordinary citizens. More than half of the local population distrusts these authorities’ ability to manage recovery funds responsibly. The researchers describe this as a “perception of elite capture” that directly threatens the civic contract underpinning democratic governance.
When Transparency Fails to Communicate
International donors have invested significantly in digital transparency platforms designed to track reconstruction projects. The data is technically sound. The problem is reach: a vast majority of Irpin residents either do not know these portals exist or simply do not use them.
This is a critical design failure. Compliance infrastructure built for donor auditors, rather than local citizens, cannot close a trust deficit. The researchers draw a direct line between inaccessible information and deepening institutional skepticism.
What Actually Works
The field evidence points toward two complementary shifts in approach:
- Communicate visible results through local media. Residents need to see reconstruction progress in formats they already consume, not navigate complex online portals. Local radio, community noticeboards, and accessible reporting matter more than technically advanced dashboards.
- Fund informal, community-driven initiatives at scale. Activities like neighbors jointly clearing debris or repairing homes together are not marginal feel-good projects. They are proven cohesion boosters that invite direct participation, restore agency, and inject trust into the broader recovery environment.
Critically, these localized efforts do not compete with large-scale infrastructure investment. They create the social conditions under which that investment can succeed.
The Strategic Implication
The Irpin findings should recalibrate how international stakeholders sequence and communicate their support. Structured participatory decision-making must be balanced with the need for rapid, visible results: citizens need to feel engaged and witness tangible progress simultaneously.
Scaling horizontal cooperation, the peer-to-peer, community-level kind, establishes a resilient foundation for long-term democratic stability. That is not a soft add-on to reconstruction. It is the load-bearing structure on which everything else depends.
For development professionals working at the humanitarian-development-peace nexus, Irpin offers a clear operational message: trust is not a precondition for reconstruction. It is the outcome of how reconstruction is done.
This article is based on findings presented at the event “Reconstructing Trust: Social Cohesion and Recovery in War-Torn Irpin,” hosted by the German Platform for the Reconstruction of Ukraine. Research was conducted by Niklas Balbon (Global Public Policy Institute) and Constantin Groll (Friedrich Ebert Foundation). Text and image were supported by AI.