Science, Technology, and Peacebuilding

The U.S. Institute of Peace hosted a workshop on August 16, 2012 with experts from the U.S. government, international organizations, and the NGO community to examine the use of data to enhance food security. The day-long workshop focused on current strategies to improve agricultural data quality and available technologies to enable better sharing, analysis and application of this data.

As part of its ongoing partnership with the National Academy of Engineering, the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) on June 25 focused their joint Roundtable on Technology, Science and Peacebuilding on four initiatives.

This third meeting of the Roundtable solicited views from the membership on the direction of each of the four initiatives launched by the Roundtable in December 2011: using data-sharing to improve coordination, sensing emerging conflicts, adapting agricultural extension to peacebuilding, and harnessing systems engineering to peacebuilding.

Members of the steering committee for each initiative described activities undertaken since the last Roundtable meeting and activities proposed for the coming six months.  Moderated discussion followed enabling each group to receive guidance on follow-on activities, such as follow-on workshops, technology demonstrations, or pilot projects in the field.  Staff also described to members a vision for peacebuilding in the future organized around the "PeaceTech Laboratory," an incubator for innovative technologies and applications that support the work of peacebuilders in the field.

Pakistan faces an acute energy crisis that it cannot fix by domestic policy alone. Instead, it will need to rely on regional cooperation. How Pakistan pursues its regional options will either increase competition among its neighbors or strengthen regional ties.

Following a report by Russian experts, Iran confirmed on May 28 that a new cyber virus codenamed “Flame” had penetrated Iran’s computer system. The new virus is unlike earlier worms because it was designed to steal information rather than to destroy systems, according to the first report issued by Russia’s Kaspersky Lab.

This Workshop brought together experts in peacebuilding, information technology, and interagency coordination to identify the needs a data sharing system must address to secure widespread adoption by both government and non-government organizations for use in managing peacebuilding activities.

To understand why coordination is so challenging, Workshop participants discussed the principal technological, ethical and organizational challenges faced by peacebuilers as they attempt to cooperate in building peace. A session on how to improve the impact of shared data examined technologies to improve NGO monitoring and evaluation processes. Finally, participants learned about UNITY, software developed to make visible the scope and scale of humanitarian and peacebuilding activity in a conflict zone.

On May 11, USIP hosted a series of discussions ranging from managing conflict in complex environments to lessons learned from USIP-funded projects. The sessions were part of the 2012 Alliance for Peacebuilding's Annual Conference which focused on new models for peacebuilding that works across disciplines in chaotic, fragile environments.

This Workshop brought together experts in peacebuilding, agricultural extension, and information technology to determine how peacebuilding activities could be delivered as components of existing extension services in conflict and post-conflict zones.

Participants investigated how conflict manifests in rural communities and the specific ways in which extension and advisory services could be used to affect such problems. In three breakout sessions, participants brainstormed what new skills, organization, and technologies might be required to integrate peacebuilding into extension activities.