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Introduction
There are now 6 billion cell phone subscrip-
tions in the world, and one third of the world’s
population is online (ITU 2012). These num-
bers are growing rapidly, particularly in the
developing world, and they demonstrate an
unparalleled level of global interconnectiv-
ity. The diffusion of cell phones and the Inter-
net have brought dramatic cultural, social,
economic, and political changes in societies
around the world. For example, much has
been said about the role of social media in
the eruption of the so-called Arab Spring, but
factors such as the massive increase in the
number of mobile devices with cameras and
the greater accessibility of the Internet, with
its ability to reach millions of people world-
wide, have been just as important.
This global interconnectivity is also pro-
ducing an unprecedented volume of data.
With 12 million text messages (SMS) sent per
minute and 2 billion YouTube pages viewed
per day (ITU 2010), the amount and variety of
data produced is a phenomenon of historical
significance. It is estimated that we now pro-
duce more data every year than in all previ-
ous years combined (O’Reilly 2012).
It is with these trends in mind—the increas-
ingly rapid global interconnectivity, the grow-
ing access to mobile devices globally, and the
generation of an unprecedented quantity of
Mancini, F and O’Reilly, M 2013 New Technology and the Prevention
of Violence and Conict.
Stability: International Journal of Security &
Development,
2(3): 55, pp. 1-9, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/sta.cp
RESEARCH ARTICLE
New Technology and the Prevention of
Violence and Conict
Francesco Mancini* and Marie O’Reilly†
stability
* Senior Director of Research, International
Peace Institute, New York, United States
mancini@ipinst.org
† Associate Editor, International Peace Institute,
New York, United States
oreilly@ipinst.org
Amid unprecedented growth in access to information communication technologies (ICTs),
particularly in the developing world, how can international actors, governments, and civil
society organizations leverage ICTs and the data they generate to more eectively prevent
violence and conict? New research shows that there is huge potential for innovative tech-
nologies to inform conict prevention eorts, particularly when technology is used to help
information ow horizontally between citizens and when it is integrated into existing civil
society initiatives.1 However, new technologies are not a panacea for preventing and reduc-
ing violence and conict. In fact, failure to consider the possible knock-on eects of apply-
ing a specic technology can lead to fatal outcomes in violent settings. In addition, employ-
ing new technologies for conict prevention can produce very dierent results depending on
the context in which they are applied and whether or not those using the technology take
that context into account. This is particularly true in light of the dramatic changes under-
way in the landscapes of violence and conict on a global level. As such, instead of focus-
ing on supply-driven technical xes, those undertaking prevention initiatives should let the
context inform what kind of technology is needed and what kind of approach will work best.
Mancini and O’Reilly: New Technology and the Prevention
of Violence and Conict
Art. 55, page 2 of 9
data—that the International Peace Institute
(IPI), with the support and partnership of the
United Nations Development Programme’s
Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery
and the United States Agency for Interna-
tional Development’s Office of Conflict Man-
agement and Mitigation, launched a project
to investigate the potential role of new ICTs
in conflict prevention. The project benefited
from the inputs and insights of a small group
of experts from academia, think tanks, the
private sector, and the field.
The resulting report, New Technology
and the Prevention of Violence and Conict,
whose findings we are sharing in this article,
explored the ways in which ICTs and the data
they generate can assist international actors,
governments, and civil society organizations
to more effectively prevent violence and con-
flict.2 It examined the contributions that cell
phones, social media, crowdsourcing, crisis
mapping, blogging, and big data analytics
can make to short-term efforts to forestall
crises and to long-term initiatives to address
the root causes of violence. Five case stud-
ies by independent experts assessed the use
of such tools in a variety of regions (Africa,
Asia, Latin America) experiencing different
types of violence (criminal violence, election-
related violence, armed conflict, short-term
crisis) in different political contexts (restric-
tive and collaborative governments).
This approach may be particularly useful
for informing policy in light of the dramatic
changes underway in the landscapes of vio-
lence. At a global level, the contexts in which
armed conflict and collective violence take
place are changing significantly, as is the
nature of conflict and violence. The num-
ber of interstate and civil wars has declined
worldwide, and these conflicts produce fewer
battle-related deaths. On the other hand,
violence linked to local disputes, organized
crime, and political repression is far more
pronounced (World Bank 2011). Overall, the
case studies demonstrated that employing
new technologies for conflict prevention can
produce very different results depending on
the context in which they are applied, and
whether or not those using the technology
take that context into account.
Learning from Dierent Contexts
Before identifying cross-cutting recommen-
dations for the more effective use of new
ICTs in conflict prevention, it is worth high-
lighting the lessons learned from different
contexts and tools.
Criminal violence. In the context of crim-
inal violence and citizen insecurity in Latin
America—a region with significant Internet
and mobile technology use—government
agencies and police forces are successfully
using digital platforms to help reduce homi-
cidal violence through improved surveillance
and intelligence. In Brazil, for example, the
online Infocrim system that collects crime
data in a central database and generates real-
time maps is credited with helping to reduce
homicide rates from 12,800 in 1999 to 7,200
in 2005. The use of innovative technologies
for violence prevention among civil society
actors is also widespread, largely in the form
of horizontal citizen-to-citizen interventions.
In light of self-censored reporting on violence
in the mainstream press in Colombia and
Mexico, for example, citizen-reporting sys-
tems and popular blogs now publish infor-
mation on the drug wars that is not available
elsewhere. Some also advocate pro-peace
messages and sustain networks among activ-
ists. However, many of these engaged citizens
are doing so at considerable risk and personal
cost. Drug cartels have also proven adept at
infiltrating networks and using individu-
als’ personal information to exact retribu-
tion, which can be fatal. Thus, while a rapid
growth in ICT use for violence prevention is
apparent in Latin America, it is partly due to
these risks that its use remains mixed at both
governmental and societal levels.
Election-related violence. As the richest
country in East Africa and one with recent
outbreaks of election-related violence, Kenya
is an interesting example of a country where
national institutions have pioneered the use
Mancini and O’Reilly: New Technology and the Prevention
of Violence and Conict
Art. 55, page 3 of 9
of innovative ICT for conflict prevention as
technology penetration rates increase. Yet,
despite many innovative applications of
new technologies to early-warning initia-
tives in particular, there is a persistent gap
between warning and response in Kenya.
Kenya’s national conflict early-warning sys-
tem connects to the regional system known
as CEWARN. This tool allows information col-
lected partly using digital devices to make its
way up from the local to the state and regional
levels. But when response is not forthcom-
ing, nonstate actors at the community level
cannot access the information to close the
warning-response gap. In addition, top-down
approaches in Kenya have sometimes lacked
transparency and accountability. This has led
to suspicion on the part of those giving over
their information, reducing the credibility of
the data and the effectiveness of the under-
taking. At the same time, the choice of tech-
nology used for prevention activities some-
times appears to be supply-driven as opposed
to demand-driven. One conflict-prevention
initiative in Kenya introduced outdated tech-
nology (high-frequency radios) to a popula-
tion that could not make use of it and in a
way that led to biased reporting. Yet many
web- and SMS-based platforms in Kenya are
making valuable contributions to early warn-
ing using crowdsourcing and GIS mapping. It
appears the most successful have strong local
input, effective partnerships, and horizontal
sharing of information.
Violent crisis. A gloomier assessment
emerged from the analysis of new technol-
ogy’s role in violent riots that broke out in
Kyrgyzstan in 2010. In a context where the
government restricted the use of new tech-
nology, ICTs appeared to do little to facili-
tate a response from local authorities or
international actors. On the contrary, the
government elected to shut down some
mobile networks. At the community level,
actors using mobile phones and Internet
websites did foster group action, but these
technologies were predominantly used to
help mobilize violent mobs, issue threats
to the opposing community, and propa-
gate conflict narratives. The Kyrgyz case also
highlighted the diaspora’s use of ICTs in an
otherwise restrictive context—an audience
that is mostly ignored by donor initiatives.
While the government was able to block
some websites and communication flows,
it was largely unable to censor the voices
of the diaspora abroad, whose message was
carried to the domestic population over the
Internet. Thus, using ICTs, the diaspora was
able to provide the Uzbek minority with
information about the conflict that the
Kyrgyz-dominated government and media
would not make public. The Kyrgyz case was
illustrative of both pernicious uses of ICTs
during conflict, particularly in a situation
where government accountability is lack-
ing, and avenues for ICT to empower out-
side actors to influence the situation. Once
again, understanding the local context in
which violence is taking place appeared to
be paramount for effective employment of
new technologies for conflict prevention.
Armed conict. In the crisis context of
Sudan and South Sudan, it was clear that
innovative technologies could only enhance
crisis response if they produced actionable
data. While there was little evidence that
technology contributed to short-term con-
flict prevention in the projects reviewed,
there were indications that ICT could play a
valuable role in preventing conflict emerging
from ongoing localized disputes. However,
Sudan and South Sudan’s positions as least
developed countries demonstrated that it is
not just the type of technology used in a con-
flict-prevention intervention that matters, it
is also the user’s familiarity with the technol-
ogy introduced. In a context with very little
ICT infrastructure, paper-based monitoring
of elections proved far more fruitful than the
SMS-based Sudan Vote Monitor, for example.
Adding ICT elements to prevention efforts
worked best when bolstering existing local
capacities, or when combining digital tech-
nologies with analog technologies, like radio,
that were already widely in use.
Mancini and O’Reilly: New Technology and the Prevention
of Violence and Conict
Art. 55, page 4 of 9
Big data. In a variety of contexts, much
has been made of the potential for big data
analytics to inform development strategies,
but it also has significant potential for pre-
venting violence and conflict. Big data can
be used to identify patterns and signatures
associated with conflict—and those associ-
ated with peace—presenting huge opportu-
nities for better-informed efforts to prevent
violence and conflict. It could serve descrip-
tive, predictive, and diagnostic functions for
conflict prevention. Indeed, law-enforce-
ment agencies are already searching for pat-
terns in data from 911 calls, closed-circuit
cameras, and crime reports in an attempt to
stop crime before it happens. And academics
and civil society actors are predicting social
unrest and riots by tracking food prices and
correlating their patterns with previous
events. Nonetheless, there are significant
hurdles to overcome before big data can
begin to systematically and reliably inform
conflict prevention. Privacy, access, and use
remain key concerns for all actors looking
to leverage big data for different ends (Croll
2012). But in conflict settings—where indi-
viduals face higher risks to their personal
security—getting the balance right in terms
of who has access to what data for what pur-
pose is critical. Conflict settings also produce
unique analytical challenges for big data. For
example, if unequal access to technology in
a society mirrors the conflict cleavages, prob-
lems with the representativeness of the data
take on a whole new dimension, which could
serve to exacerbate the situation.
How-To Guide: Leveraging New
Technology for the Prevention of
Violence and Conict
The diversity and changing nature of conflict
settings strongly suggest that those seeking
to prevent conflict and save lives need to
adapt their strategies to the context at hand.
For example, the types of technology that
link civil, governmental, and regional early-
warning efforts in a relatively stable setting,
such as Kenya, may have limited impact in
an environment where governments act
precisely to restrict such information flows,
as happened in Kyrgyzstan. Similarly, the
tools and approaches used in a context of
entrenched criminal violence, in which ano-
nymity seems critical for incentivizing citi-
zen use of ICT for violence prevention, are
unlikely to have the same effect in a situation
of election-related violence, in which the vet-
ting of the information is essential to avoid
politicization and false reporting.
For policy purposes, when applying new
technologies to violence- and conflict-pre-
vention efforts, it may therefore be more
helpful to think in terms of the conflict con-
text rather than frameworks suggesting that
responses are ‘generational.’3 Such ambitious
theories may lead policymakers astray rather
than inform them about how to operate in
different socioeconomic, demographic, and
political contexts. In reality, actors in conflict
settings rarely move linearly from one gener-
ation of tools to another. ‘Older’ proprietary
technology is often used in conjunction with
‘new’ open-source technologies. Top-down
tools cohabit with bottom-up approaches.
That said, the lessons emerging from these
case studies, the insights of the experts
involved in the project, and the analyses
of the authors suggest a number of steps
that those using innovative ICTs can take to
strengthen their voice and action in order to
more effectively prevent violence and con-
flict. Together, they can be taken as a how-to
guide for international organizations, gov-
ernments, and civil society actors embarking
on prevention initiatives that seek to lever-
age new technologies.
1. Even if you crowdsource your
hammer, not every problem is a nail
Assuming there is a technical fix for what is
an inherently political problem is a danger-
ous path, no matter what technology is at
hand. New technologies have the potential
to make huge contributions to violence- and
conflict-prevention efforts, but they are no
panacea for holistic solutions. In particular,
Mancini and O’Reilly: New Technology and the Prevention
of Violence and Conict
Art. 55, page 5 of 9
when trying to integrate operational preven-
tion (targeting a crisis at hand) and struc-
tural prevention (addressing root causes of
conflict), new technologies should be accom-
panied by more traditional tools, such as
preventive diplomacy, governance reforms,
and economic initiatives. They may comple-
ment these other elements of prevention—
for example, by increasing citizen participa-
tion in governance reforms—but should not
replace them.
In other words, new technologies make up
one more tool in the toolbox of preventive
action. As such, international organizations
and governments should examine all the tools
at their disposal when designing prevention
initiatives, not just technological tools. Civil
society organizations should also not be blink-
ered by their particular thematic focus or pet
projects. Sometimes applying new technolo-
gies simply may not work. All actors should
think politically as well as technically.
2. Consider the context
Before embarking on any prevention ini-
tiative that seeks to apply innovative tech-
nologies, actors should step back and assess
whether their investment will generate the
desired results. First, the socioeconomic
setting—from technology penetration and
use to literacy levels—should be thoroughly
examined to see whether technology can
have a positive impact and to select the tech-
nology that will be appropriate. Users in one
community may be well equipped to adopt
a new technology and integrate it into their
existing initiatives, while others may not
have the means, know-how, or inclination to
do so. Keep in mind that not every culture
or group will have the same enthusiasm for
embracing new technologies. Demographics,
rural versus urban contexts, gender consid-
erations, and generational factors will also
play an important role. In addition, some-
times ‘old’ technologies (or no technology)
may be more appropriate and effective. In
fact, many local-level projects appeared to
work best when they combined old and new
technologies—for example, by augmenting
existing analog early-warning systems with
digital components—and accompanied them
with training and capacity building.
With this in mind, international organiza-
tions and governments should make needs
assessments and feasibility studies standard
practice to prevent the supply of technol-
ogy from outstripping the demand.4 Civil
society organizations are generally closer to
the ground and should have a better under-
standing of the context. However, very often
they have no tools or resources for thorough
assessments. They should include needs
assessments or conflict and peace assess-
ments that incorporate technological tools
in their proposals when seeking funding
from donors.
3. Do no harm
Failure to consider the possible knock-on
effects of applying a specific technology can
lead to fatal outcomes in violent settings.
Spoilers—whether in criminal gangs, rebel
groups, or government agencies—can also lev-
erage new technologies and the information
they provide to incite violence, promote con-
flict, and perpetrate crimes. As the case stud-
ies demonstrated, restrictive governments
can use information and communication
technologies to prevent information from
getting to one group in society and identify
members of a dissenting group. Criminals
and drug lords can use personal information
obtained from websites to eliminate individ-
uals that present a threat to their activities.
As such, human input, political awareness,
and a conflict-sensitive approach remain
vital from the conception of an initiative
until long after its completion. Identifying
the possible spoilers, conducting a cost-ben-
efit analysis that incorporates levels of risk,
developing mechanisms to mitigate risks,
and creating contingency plans should be
fundamental components of project design
and implementation. Every actor seeking
to apply new technologies to prevention
initiatives should apply conflict-sensitive
Mancini and O’Reilly: New Technology and the Prevention
of Violence and Conict
Art. 55, page 6 of 9
approaches and be aware of possible nega-
tive and knock-on effects emerging from
their use of specific technologies.
4. Integrate local input throughout, and
don’t reinvent the wheel
Once a project is underway, continual input
from the local beneficiaries is vital to any
attempt to use technology to support pre-
vention efforts. The case studies show that
interventions designed almost exclusively in
a top-down manner are set up to fail. Exam-
ples abound where an absence of consulta-
tion with and involvement of the affected
communities meant there was a lack of buy-
in from those who were supposed to ben-
efit, project financing was unsustainable, or
the credibility of the information collected
was questionable. In addition, insufficient
awareness of or collaboration with existing
initiatives can lead to a multiplicity of tech-
nological platforms and initiatives, as seen
in Kenya. This can undermine the impact
of prevention efforts, particularly when it
means information does not get to the actors
with the greatest ability to respond. In gen-
eral, the application of new technological
tools to prevention efforts at the local level
works best when integrated into existing
civil society initiatives.
5. Use technology to help information
ow horizontally more than vertically
Perhaps the most significant innovation
created by advances in technology is the
empowerment of individuals to participate
in conflict-prevention initiatives in their own
communities and societies. Governments
and international actors have been collecting
data and using technological tools to inform
and implement policy and action for a long
time. But since these tended to be large-
scale, complex, and expensive endeavors,
they remained the reserve of those in power.
Today, citizens with mobile phones, cameras,
videos, and Internet access can contribute
greatly to early warning by ‘getting the word
out’ to a larger audience. International civil
society groups and advocacy groups also
draw on this digital deluge—along with other
data-driven evidence and satellite images—to
pressure international actors and Western
governments to respond.
However, this technology-driven infor-
mation overload does not always facilitate
timely or appropriate action. In fact, politi-
cal decision-making processes at the inter-
national level remain largely disconnected
from early warning and conflict-prevention
mechanisms. Reams of digital evidence can
contribute greatly to postconflict justice
and accountability mechanisms. But when it
comes to prevention, the international warn-
ing-response gap persists even if information
about violence and mass atrocities abounds
(O’Reilly 2013).
To close the gap, citizens in conflict settings
can use digital technologies to more easily
inform themselves and those who are better
placed to respond more quickly at the local
level. This information, spread horizontally,
can be used to put pressure on local decision
makers much more effectively than it can at
the international level. For the prevention of
violent crime, the example of Latin America
showed how horizontal citizen-to-citizen ICT
initiatives are the most dynamic and prom-
ising. Over the long term, citizens can also
use digital tools and platforms to incentivize
positive change in their communities and
societies. In other words, it seems that new
technologies have greater potential neither
in ‘top-down’ nor ‘bottom-up’ mechanisms,
but for ‘bottom-bottom’ approaches.
Ultimately, facilitating the horizontal
spread of ICT use for conflict prevention can
help to connect more ‘warners’ and ‘respond-
ers’ more quickly, and contribute to commu-
nities’ resilience in the long term. As such,
international organizations should consider
supporting the emergence of spontaneous
micro-initiatives, provide funding to develop
local capacity, improve connectivity among
different initiatives, and help the sharing
of best practices. Civil society organizations
should identify and reward skilled individu-
Mancini and O’Reilly: New Technology and the Prevention
of Violence and Conict
Art. 55, page 7 of 9
als and groups in local communities who can
adopt new technologies for preventing vio-
lence and conflict.
6. Establish consensus regarding ownership,
use, and sharing of information
Community participation alone may not
always be enough to prevent a conflict, par-
ticularly when it comes to large-scale col-
lective violence and war. New technologies
make it possible for international organiza-
tions and government agencies to acquire
more information and more granular
information to inform prevention efforts—
whether this data is voluntarily given in the
form of citizen reporting, harvested from the
data deluge online, or collected using new
surveillance technologies.
But much more work is needed to identify
the levels of trust, transparency, and control
that individuals, businesses, and govern-
ments are willing to accept when it comes to
sharing data via digital technologies in a con-
text of violence and conflict. As evidenced
in Kenya, suspicion and distrust of national
police and security establishments may have
contributed to communities’ reluctance to
share information for early warning with the
National Steering Committee. In the Latin
America case, it was clear that citizens were
more likely to report crime if they felt con-
fident they could do so anonymously. And
in Sudan, there were indications that when
communities understand what their infor-
mation is going to be used for, they may be
more willing to participate.
International organizations, governments,
and civil society actors should establish con-
sensus around questions of privacy, access,
and use of digital data in any given initiative.
This will make prevention efforts more legiti-
mate in the eyes of affected communities,
and ultimately more effective.
7. Foster partnerships for better results
Partnerships will be essential for the effec-
tive application of new technologies for
preventive ends. There are indications that
prevention initiatives that drew on the
complementary strengths of international
donors, governments, the private sector,
and civil society proved more effective.
Indeed, in some contexts donors may need
to sacrifice visibility for the sake of effec-
tiveness. This is particularly true when the
use of new technologies to gather data in a
politically charged context is seen as exter-
nal meddling or even spying, which can de-
legitimize and undermine the endeavor, if
not kill the initiative completely. The need
for partnership in the realm of big data is
particularly acute given the array of actors
involved in extracting actionable informa-
tion from the data deluge—private com-
panies that hold the data, academics and
technical experts who can analyze it, civil
society actors who can put it in context, and
governments and international bodies that
can regulate its use and incentivize coop-
eration. International organizations and
governments are well placed to foster such
partnerships and should invest in doing so
for more promising results.
Conclusion
At this early stage in the consideration of
new technology’s role in preventing violence
and conflict, it is only possible to sketch out
very tentative conclusions. The application
of new technologies to conflict-prevention
efforts has yet to show robust results. Most
of the analysis points to the potential rather
than the current reality, although there have
been some significant, positive indicators
at the local level in particular. Continued,
extensive research and systematic evaluation
are needed for a deeper understanding of the
realities as well as the possibilities.
Yet, many ‘traditional’ conflict-prevention
initiatives also aren’t producing the out-
comes desired. With or without new technol-
ogy, this is particularly true when it comes
to bridging the gulf between warning and
response. Beyond examining the provision of
warning or identification of conflict drivers,
further research into technology’s impact on
Mancini and O’Reilly: New Technology and the Prevention
of Violence and Conict
Art. 55, page 8 of 9
response could be the most helpful for the
field of prevention as a whole. This could
include assessing how ICT can be used to
generate incentives for action, which seems
to be more promising at a localized level,
and to link decision-making processes with
early-warning and conflict-prevention mech-
anisms. And given the huge pools of data
that now need to be analyzed for actionable
information, governments and international
actors also need to invest heavily in analyti-
cal capabilities at local, national, and interna-
tional levels.
There is a real risk that applying new tools
to a system that already struggles to meet
its goals may not get much further than a
Band-Aid effect. But the increased horizontal
spread of new technologies across societies
has the potential to revolutionize these tra-
ditional systems by making more informa-
tion available to more people. This not only
makes it harder not to do something when
violence or conflict appears imminent, it
also makes response more likely because it
empowers local actors—who are closer to the
crisis—and creates incentives to take action.
Given the frequent paralysis at national and
international levels when it comes to taking
action to prevent conflict, this ‘bottom-bot-
tom’ approach may be even more important
in the short term than the ‘bottom-up’ tac-
tic of raising voices to national and interna-
tional levels.
In the long run, however, the most effec-
tive approach to using new technologies for
conflict prevention may well be the approach
needed in prevention more broadly: one that
successfully balances both grassroots, decen-
tralized efforts and the more rationalized
and coordinated activities of governments
and international organizations.
Notes
1 This article is based on the following
report: Mancini, F (ed.) 2013. New Tech-
nology and the Prevention of Violence and
Conict. New York: International Peace
Institute.
2 The present article is a condensed version
of the introduction and conclusion of
this report (Mancini 2013).
3 For an explanation of the ‘generational’
approach to technology in early warning
and response, see the chapter on big data
in Mancini 2013. See also Meier 2009.
4 For more on assessment tools for donors
and international organizations, and the
necessity of integrating a culture of anal-
ysis and contextualization, see Slotin et al
2010.
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How to cite this article: Mancini, F and O’Reilly, M 2013 New Technology and the Prevention of
Violence and Conict.
Stability: International Journal of Security & Development,
2(3): 55, pp. 1-9,
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/sta.cp
Published: 29 October 2013
Copyright: © 2013 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use,
distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/.
Stability: International Journal of Security & Development
is a
peer-reviewed open access journal published by Ubiquity Press OPEN ACCESS
