In January 2020, the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs launched the Innovation Cell, an interdisciplinary team dedicated to helping the Department and its field presences to understand and explore, pilot, and scale new technologies, tools, and practices in conflict prevention, mediation and peacebuilding. Responding to the Secretary-General’s call on the UN system to accelerate its uptake of innovative methods, the Innovation Cell catalyses innovation in peace and security, while providing a forum for colleagues at UNHQ and in the field to engage collaboratively in human-centred design and problem-solving.
The Cell is part of the UN’s Innovation Network (UNIN) and works to galvanize an ecosystem of technology, civil society, and academic partners outside the UN system on peace and security use cases, thereby leveraging innovation for the shared goal of peace.
Key documents
Innovation:
- UN 2.0 Quintet of Change, September 2021
- Secretary-General's Guidance on Behavioural Science, June 2021
- DPPA Innovation Cell Summary Document, 2020
- Data Strategy of the Secretary-General for Action by Everyone, Everywhere (2020-2022)
- DPPA Innovation Cell Vision Document, April 2020
- Innovation in the DPPA Multi-Year Appeal, p.40 (2020-2022)
- UN Secretary-General’s strategy on new technologies, September 2018
Resources
Guides:
- Innovation Research Guide (DPPA Innovation Cell and Dag Hammarskjöld Library)
- E-Analytics Guide (DPPA, UN Global Pulse and UNU Institute on Computing and Society)
- Social Media Analysis (DPPA)
Digital Applications:
- Peace and Security Data Hub - Repository for UN peace and security data (DPPA and DPPA-DPO)
- Diplomatic Pulse - Web search of diplomatic press releases (DPPA and Qatar Computing Institute of Technology)
- Sweet Victory - A Game about Behavioural Science for Peace (DPPA, Bad News and the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab)
- Lisan - Iraqi, Yemeni, Sudanese and Libyan dialect corpus (DPPA, American University of Beirut and Birzeit University)
- Geoguard - A geospatial data dashboard visualizing relationships between conflict and water scarcity
Videos & Virtual Reality experiences:
Articles
News Articles:
- Making peace more inclusive: new research helps AI-enabled computers understand Arabic dialects (American University of Beirut, March 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)
- Lisan: Yemeni, Iraqi, Libyan, and Sudanese Arabic Dialect Copora with Morphological Annotations (arXiv, Dec 2022)
- La inteligencia artificial ya es capaz de ganar una negociación diplomática (Newtral, Nov 2022)
- Virtual reality film “Pathways Colombia" highlights peace agreement's reintegration and reconciliation work (UN Verification Mission in Colombia, Nov 2022)
- “Why International Diplomacy Is Looking to the Metaverse to Help Build Peace” (LLB Online, July 2022)
- Using Artificial Intelligence for Peacebuilding (SAGE Journals, May 2022)
DPPA "Politically Speaking":
- Youth Explore the Future of Peacebuilding in Northeast Asia (Feb 2023)
- Eyes in the Sky for Peace: Geospatial Data in Conflict Prevention (Jun 2022)
- Peace is Priceless, Peace Is Possible: DPPA Launches Multi-Year Appeal 2022 Mid-Year Report (Sep 2022)
- Creating a Collective Language: Youth from Northeast Asia Imagine the Future of the Region (Dec 2021)
- From Online Hate Speech to Deep Fakes: Shared Challenges and Solutions Around Elections (Oct 2021)
- “We Use Technology, Not the Other Way Around” — Social Media and Political Analysis (Sep 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.