Predictive Peacekeeping: Strengthening Predictive Analysis in UN Peace Operations

Abstract

The UN is becoming increasingly data-driven. Until recently, data-driven initiatives have mainly been led by individual UN field missions, but with António Guterres, the new Secretary-General, a more centralized approach is being embarked on. With a trend towards the use of data to support the work of UN staff, the UN is likely to soon rely on systematic data analysis to draw patterns from the information that is gathered in and across UN field missions. This paper is based on UN peacekeeping data from the Joint Mission Analysis Centre (JMAC) in Darfur, and draws on interviews conducted in New York, Mali and Sudan. It will explore the practical and ethical implications of systematic data analysis in UN field missions. Systematic data analysis can help the leadership of field missions to decide where to deploy troops to protect civilians, guide conflict prevention efforts and help preempt threats to the mission itself. However, predictive analysis in UN peace operations will only be beneficial if it also leads to early action. Finally, predictive peacekeeping will not only be demanding of resources, it will also include ethical challenges on issues such as data privacy and the risk of reidentification of informants or other potentially vulnerable people.

Digital Peacebuilding: A Framework for Critical–Reflexive Engagement

“…Such research contributions are predominantly characterized by a pragmatic concern with how to increase the capacity of United Nations (UN) missions to implement their mandate. Consequently, research in this field has often been predisposed to operational concerns, including the challenges of analyzing large amounts of social media data ( Karlsrud 2014 ) or the difficulties of generating predictive analysis through machine learning tools and linking these to operational decision-making ( Duursma and Karlsrud 2019 ). For example, in discussing the potential of geospatial technologies to enhance peacekeeping mandates, Convergne and Snyder (2015) point to various challenges of an "operational and political nature", such as the limited availability and quality of satellite data, the management of information flows, or resistance from UN member states.…”

MINUSMA and the Militarization of UN Peacekeeping

“…52 In UN peacekeeping operations, the use of intelligence was accepted in the 2000s and by the end of the decade had become standard. 53 On the mission level, PKOs have military, police, and civilian personnel dedicated to collecting and analysing information. 54 In MINUSMA, Rietjens and de Waar write that, 'the UN enacted an unprecedented increase in its intelligence capacity'.…”