Call for Proposals: Digital Technologies for Environmental Peacebuilding: Sustaining Peace in the Digital Age

Mar 19, 2021 | Environmental Peacebuilding Association and UN Environment Programme
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In the span of only a few decades, new big data ecosystems and a combination of frontier technologies, including social media, artificial intelligence, blockchain, earth observation, and crowd-sourcing have become critical to monitor and address natural resources management, environmental degradation, climate change, and human security.

The application of these new methods of data generation and use are enabling practitioners, policymakers and the private sector to develop tailored solutions for world regions experiencing climate, environmental, and natural resource-driven conflict. These methods offer great potential for conflict and disaster early warning, horizon scanning, conflict monitoring, cooperative resource management, natural resources traceability, land use planning and much more. Despite the rapid proliferation of these methods, however, the environmental peacebuilding field still lacks comprehensive principles for the application and governance of these new technologies.

To address this gap, a core group of researchers and practitioners from the Environmental Peacebuilding Association and the United Nations Environment Programme are collaborating to assess the different applications of frontier technologies for environmental peacebuilding at all phases of the conflict lifecycle. The case studies will be presented through a digital platform as well as a written policy report, highlighting both the benefits and risks posed by this rapidly evolving field.

Call for Case Studies

This call is for submissions from researchers and practitioners to share cases from their work demonstrating novel applications of frontier technology (e.g. machine learning and neural language processing, blockchain, mobile phone applications, remote sensing, or mapping) to advance environmental peacebuilding goals, through different stages of the conflict cycle:

• Horizon scanning, early warning, early action
• Conflict management, mediation, and peacemaking
• Peacekeeping and stabilization
• Peacebuilding, sustainable development, and preventive diplomacy

If you are interested in contributing to the report, please submit brief answers to the short questions below before 16 April 2021.These will be revised by the authors who will contact you directly.

For inclusion in the report, the finalized case contributions will be around 600 words in length, with complementary visualizations (high-resolution images or graphics), to be submitted by 16 April 2021. A digital platform will provide an opportunity to host complementary material from contributors (e.g. journal articles or reports).