Data for Peacebuilding and Prevention Ecosystem Mapping: The State of Play and the Path to Creating a Community of Practice

This report is part of the new initiative on Data for Peacebuilding and Prevention, hosted at the NYU Center on International Cooperation in New York. Inspired by practical applications presented at Data for Peace and Security Workshops in 2019 and 2020, it aims to analyze the state of play of an existing global ecosystem in the field of “data for peace and prevention,” in order to better inform existing actors and those about to enter the field.

Our specific objective is to map information on organizations and projects using cutting-edge approaches to the use of data in peacebuilding. In particular, these include the use of advanced data science methods, quantitative methods, predictive analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), natural language processing (NLP), and other techniques employed to address ground-level problems in the peacebuilding field. Our methodology includes desk review research of key documents, complemented by a set of stakeholder interviews with peace and conflict experts, data scientists, ethicists, and peace advocates.