A Challenge for PeaceTech: People-Centered, Tactical Survival?

My new colleagues at the EPFL EssentialTech Centre recently organized an excellent panel on PeaceTech to explore the role that science & technology can play in enabling a more peaceful world. Listening to the panelists reminded me of my early days in this space 20 years ago. The ideas we wrestled with back are likely woefully obsolete today. Still, they may be worth sharing, even if only to serve as a point of reference.

For context, I started working in the peace and conflict space in 2002-2004 with Swisspeace, specifically on their conflict early warning program. During this time, I also worked with the Center for International Conflict Resolution at Columbia University, with David Hamburg (considered the "father" of the conflict prevention field), and with the UN Committee on Genocide Prevention on several occasions. I subsequently worked with the OSCE, OECD, and European Commission on related peace and conflict projects. I then co-designed and deployed CEWARN, the regional conflict early warning and response system in the Horn of Africa, and later worked with the Peace Research Institute in Oslo (PRIO).

My doctoral dissertation focused on the use of new technologies by repressive regimes and pro-democracy movements alike. I was keen to understand how these technologies might shift (or not) the balance of power between states and resistance movements. At one point, I was actively training pro-democracy groups on digital activism and digital resistance while also deploying crowdsourced crisis maps in active conflict zones (see my book Digital Humanitarians). Last but not least, I worked on a number of PeaceTech projects with Cure Violence and Sisi Ni Amani.

Working on conflict early warning systems made me realize they were wired wrong. These hierarchical systems were designed to warn UN Headquarters in New York about impending conflict thousands of kilometers away. These systems didn't actually warn at-risk populations. In fact, these communities would never know these systems even existed. Long story short, the concept of people-centered early warning eventually emerged (from the field of disaster risk management), shifting our attention from warning to locally-led response.

We started asking ourselves not only how at-risk communities might warn themselves but also how they might tactically respond to impending conflict in order to survive. Fact is, local communities across the world have a very long history of surviving in conflict zones. There are considerable insights to be gained from reading survivor testimonies, as they shed light on numerous tactics that individuals, communities, and entire villages have used to evade violent conflict over the past 100 years. These testimonies come from survivors of world wars, civil wars, genocides, guerrilla conflicts, and more.

As I explored this further, I came to realize that the fields of civil resistance and nonviolent action also had invaluable tactical insights to offer that were directly relevant for people-centered early warning and tactical response in conflict zones. I wrote multiple papers on this and related topics.

What does this have to do with PeaceTech? Well, how might a combination of tactics and technologies enable at-risk communities to stay safe and evade direct violence by becoming "invisible" and self-sufficient until the violence passes? Point is, there needs to be a Plan B. If all other interventions fail to prevent violence, and the UN pulls out its staff while foreign embassies also evacuate, then at the very least, ensuring that at-risk communities can evade and survive said violence is paramount.

That's why I've long been interested in Casey Barrs 's important work on Locally-Led Advance Mobile Aid and the equally vital work of friends at Hala Systems, Inc. , who build people-centered remote sensing and alerting systems powered by AI and IoT to save lives in conflict zones. Their approach is the kind of PeaceTech I want to see in the world.

To be clear, people-centered early warning and locally led nonviolent tactical response are not a cure-all for surviving armed conflict. At the same time, considerable evidence shows that such an approach can and has worked in many situations of armed conflict over the past 100 years. Some 20 years ago, many in the conflict early warning/response space almost completely ignored this approach. Today, we can add tech to this approach, which comes with a host of opportunities, challenges, and risks.

Can the next generation of PeaceTech lead the way on people-centered, tactical survival? Is this already happening? If not, should it? I've been out of the loop on PeaceTech for a good while, so am keen to hear from the experts.