ICT for Peacebuilding

ICT4Peace endeavours to use the increasing footprints of broadband internet access (through WiMax, WiFi and mesh networks, for instance) to disseminate content in support of peace that is generated by the communities embroiled in conflict. The strategy is based on the belief that new media enables even communities that are illiterate to communicate valuable insights into the dynamics of peace and conflict by recording their voices on digital media, or by recording human rights violations on camera or digital video. ICT4Peace is concerned not with disseminating information but, instead, with exploring how to produce, capture, store, analyse and share knowledge in meaningful ways in a peace process. This is a central question for ICT4Peace advocates - the ways that technology can help achieve seamless knowledge flows within and between stakeholders in a peace process.

Concretely, ICT4Peace is a weblog-centred initiative that seeks to generate the exchange of ideas about the use of ICTs for conflict transformation - with effects "in the field" (click here to access it). Through online discussion, bloggers are thought to be able to augment the efforts of peacebuilders by enhancing channels, avenues and possibilities for communication, information and knowledge sharing, collaboration, empowerment and discussion in virtual spaces - even when physical, real-world meetings are impossible because of geographical distance or political sensitivities. The searchable ICT4Peace website also includes information to guide the planning and implementation of communication-focused initiatives; links to websites, books, radio projects, and so on related to the use of ICTs for peacebuilding are shared.

In addition to serving as a resource and platform for communication for practitioners, academics, students, developers and researchers, ICT4Peace is advocacy-oriented; organisers believe that the communication fostered through the portal can be deeply subversive. Several posts in the blog have examined the use of ICT as a tool for helping bring down authoritarian governments and despotic leaders. Seen in this light, ICT4Peace is about the social uses of technology, which is a strategy for spurring research on how democratic reform movements have used technology (how the movement has shaped the technology and the technology shaped the movement).

Conflict, Technology.

"ICT, in the context of peacebuilding, is the use of enabling technologies to augment existing stakeholder interventions, enable hitherto marginalised actors to participate more fully in peacebuilding processes, empower grassroots communities and bring cohesion to the incredible range of activities on multiple tiers that are an intrinsic part of full-field peacebuilding and conflict transformation."