AfP, the Toda Peace Institute, Mercy Corps, and Search for Common Ground co-lead the Digital Peacebuilding Community of Practice (CoP). The group is an open community of practice to advance “digital peacebuilding”, defined as the analysis of and response to online conflict dynamics and the harnessing of digital tools to amplify peacebuilding outcomes.
To date, the group has focused on peacebuilding-specific issues, including digital dialogue and social cohesion efforts, peacebuilding approaches to counter speech and disinformation, digital media literacy, and broader peacetech initiatives. Our community seeks to apply peacebuilding principles and ideas where relevant to technology.
Our Mission
The Digital Peacebuilding Community of Practice seeks to provide a platform for members to engage one another on elevating peacebuilding principles within this fast-evolving tech landscape. The working group aims to embrace innovation and harness technology to address the most pressing issues, including the rise of geopolitics and new forms of warfare; engage with the twin tasks of leveraging the opportunities technology provides while managing its disruptive impact; and build a collective voice in related global policy and multi-stakeholder frameworks.
Our Goals
The advent of new technologies, from AI to “deep fakes,” has not only upended the way we think, communicate, and interact with one another, but also proven to have a profound transformative and disruptive impact on fragile and conflict affected states, as well as established democracies. The community of practice will seek to achieve several different goals:
Facilitate networking among groups already active in peacetech digital peacebuilding, including sharing experiences and building synergy.
Provide capacity building webinars on particular issues to advance skills in digital communication strategies within peacebuilding organizations.
Host discussion forums for discussion and coordination of policy advocacy and/or platform design recommendations.
Offer external public-facing forums highlighting digital peacebuilding innovations to tech companies, funders, and policymakers.
