The Innovation Cell of the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs integrates emerging technologies and strategic foresight into the Department's conflict prevention and peacebuilding work, deploying artificial intelligence, remote sensing, and multilingual data analysis to strengthen early warning, support preventive diplomacy, and inform mediation efforts.
Established in 2020, the team works with field missions, including Special Political Missions, and headquarters and partners with technology companies, research institutions and civil society. This work supports implementation of the Pact for the Future (September 2024), which calls on the United Nations to harness data and digital tools for prevention while ensuring responsible use of emerging technologies.
RESOURCES
Innovation:
- Social Media Analysis (DPPA)
- Exploratory prompts for Political Affairs Officers, 2025
- UN 2.0 Quintet of Change, September 2021
- Secretary-General's Guidance on Behavioural Science, June 2021
Other Digital Applications:
- Peace and Security Data Hub - Repository for UN peace and security data (DPPA and DPPA-DPO)
- Sweet Victory - A Game about Behavioural Science for Peace (DPPA, Bad News and the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab)
- UN DPPA Innovation Vimeo channel - Videos and Virtual Reality experiences
SELECT ARTICLES
- UN Mission: 460 participants in a digital conversation on issues of "structured dialogue" (AR) (Oct 2025)
- Using the Power of AI to Boost Youth Political Participation in Guatemala (Dec 2024)
- Geoguard: a new tool for climate, peace and security (Oct 2024)
- Making peace more inclusive: new research helps AI-enabled computers understand Arabic dialects (American University of Beirut, March 2023)
- Youth Explore the Future of Peacebuilding in Northeast Asia (Feb 2023)
- UN, QCRI hosts E-Analytics and Innovation Lab (The Peninsula, Feb 2023)
- UN, QCRI alliance to drive peace with technology (Gulf Times, Feb 2023)
- UN and QCRI Alliance to Drive Peace with Technology (Qatar Computing Research Institute, Feb 2023)
- UN and HBKU’s QCRI Institute Alliance to Drive Peace with Technology (Mena FN, Feb 2023)
- UN and HBKU’s QCRI Institute alliance to drive peace with technology (Zawya, Feb 2023)
- Using Artificial Intelligence for Peacebuilding (SAGE Journals, May 2022)
- From Online Hate Speech to Deep Fakes: Shared Challenges and Solutions Around Elections (Oct 2021)
CONTACT
Reach out to us at DPPA-Innovation@un.org for questions, comments and ideas.
Visit us at https://www.futuringpeace.org to learn more about the Innovation-related think pieces and approaches.
Follow us at https://medium.com/futuring-peace and https://dppa.medium.com/ for innovation-related think pieces and approaches.
Follow @UN_Innovation to learn what UN entities are doing in the space of innovation.