Whole-of-Society Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding

 
The London School of Economics, with funding from the European Commission, is conducting research into the EU’s conflict prevention work. As part of this research project, Build Up leads the assessment of and recommendations for innovative and appropriate use of ICTs within conflict prevention and peacebuilding, with a particular emphasis on the EU’s role in relation to ICTs. The final publication, ICTs & EU civilian peacebuilding: Reflections on good practices, opportunities and challenges published in February 2017, builds on the practical challenges of and opportunities for operationalising peacetech identified in an initial scoping study, and highlights a range of good practices from two case studies: SMS-based programming by Sisi ni Amani in Kenya and the use of video game Peace Park in Georgia by Elva.

Recommendations

• The EU (more specifically the offices and units responsible for peacebuilding and conflict prevention as well as country delegations) needs to engage with the ‘peacetech’ community to better understand the value of the uses of ICTs in peacebuilding and conflict prevention to translate technological opportunities into a thematic perspective that the EU can take in following its institutional organisation.
• This compartmentalisation should not occur to the detriment of strategic programming.
• ICTs can help strategic programming through more efficient and effective knowledge sharing (although this would require significant investment from the EU).
• From a Whole of Society approach, ICTs present both challenges and opportunities for EU peacebuilding and conflict prevention practice: the opportunity to bridge the gap between grassroots/community and political processes; and the challenge of undertaking coherent implementation at the political and grassroots levels.
• These considerations should inform the institutional place and policy direction the EU will set for its ICTs peacebuilding and conflict prevention capabilities.