Crisis Prevention: From Ambition to Action –
New Pathways for the UN

The founding members of the United Nations (UN) had one great ambition: to avoid future wars. However, the UN has been more involved in crisis response than prevention. UN Secretary-General António Guterres has embraced the concept of “sustaining peace”, which is intended not only to restore peace but to create the conditions for it to endure in the long term. This also involves prevention.

Where are the UN at now? What can new technologies contribute for early prediction and warning of conflicts? How can the cooperation of international organisations in conflict prevention be improved? And finally: how can the necessary political will be generated for early detection and preventive action?

We will discuss these questions during the Berlin Summer Dialogue 2020. For the first time, this traditional event will happen as an online dialogue. The sef: invites experts from all over the world to participate in four events during June 2020. If you are interested in participating, please get in touch (and tell us why you are interested): neubauer(at)sef-bonn.org.

GUARD - Global Urban Analytics for Resilient Defence (2017-21)
Professor Weisi Guo, Prof. Mark Briers, Sir Alan Wilson

Crisis Prevention: From Ambition to Action. New Pathways for the UN
Dr Paula Hidalgo-Sanchis

Week 3 “Facilitating a faster response by international organisations in crisis and conflicts”

Sarah Bressan:
https://www.gppi.net/2019/07/24/looking-ahead-foresight-for-crisis-prevention
https://www.gppi.net/2019/09/30/forecasting-and-foresight-methods-for-anticipating-governance-breakdown-and-violent-conflict
https://www.gppi.net/2020/05/13/whats-left-of-the-failed-states-debate

Week 2 “Crisis and Conflict Early Warning – From Big Data to AI – New Analytical Tools?”

Prof. Weisi Guo:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07026-4
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.190645
https://arxiv.org/abs/1604.01693

Paula Hidalgo-Sanchis:
https://www.unglobalpulse.org/2018/12/using-big-data-and-ai-to-support-peace-and-security-efforts-in-africa/ (Blog)
https://www.unglobalpulse.org/document/experimenting-with-big-data-and-ai-to-support-peace-and-security/  (Publication)

Week 1 “Crisis Prevention and the UN – Where Are We Now?”

Teresa Whitfield:
https://www.hdcentre.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Mediating-in-a-complex-world.pdf

Adriana Abdenur:
https://www.sef-bonn.org/en/publications/global-trends-analysis/022019.html