12 Policy Brief No. 93 Toda Peace Institute protesting, their vision for their country, or any other narrative about their identity as an Egyptian.36 2. Digital Conflict Analysis and Ceasefire Mapping Conflict analysis is an essential element of peacebuilding. Before deciding how to intervene in conflict, peacebuilders conduct research to uncover the “who, what, why, how, when, and where” that can reveal more information about the root causes of conflict, the deeper interests of each stakeholder, and the best strategy for transforming conflict. Conflict analysis includes diverse research methods to understand patterns of discrimination and harm in society, as well as grievances expressed by different groups.37 Digital technologies are useful in several ways for improving conflict analysis. Peacebuilding groups use technology to help track violent incidents or assess the risk of violence using crowdsourced, user-reported data. Digital technologies also enable civil society to report outbreaks of violence.38 The largest peacebuilding organisation in the world, Search for Common Ground, selects, trains, and convenes conflict monitors who report on increases or decreases in conflict drivers through texts. SFCG also provides a public phone number to anyone else to contribute information on safety issues.39 For example, the Carter Centre's Syria Mapping Project provides mediators and humanitarian responders with up-to-date, information on developments throughout Syria including political statements, information about military defections, and armed group formations as well as footage of the actual fighting, and humanitarian relief efforts.40 3. Digital Election Monitoring A variety of digital peacebuilding platforms emerged from Kenya to prevent election violence. Kenyans developed the Ushahidi platform to help prevent election violence in 2007. The platform enables data collection, management, and visualization. By crowdsourcing data, Ushahidi can take reports of election irregularities or violence and create a map for key stakeholders to respond immediately. The Ushahidi platform now performs a variety of other peacebuilding tasks that involve crowdsourcing information and providing visual maps to help communities, NGOs and governments respond to needs or issues.41 See http://beta.18daysinegypt.com/#/explore Accessed 20 June 2020. See for example Lisa Schirch. Conflict Assessment and Peacebuilding Planning: Toward a Participatory Approach to Human Security. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2014. 38 Jacob Shapiro, David A Siegel. “Coordination and Security: How Mobile Communications Affect Insurgency.” Journal of Peace Research. Vol. 52, 2015. pp. 312–22. 39 For more information on Search for Common Ground’s use of technology for conflict analysis see their website at https://www.sfcg.org/tag/technology/ 40 Kane Farabaugh. “Carter Center Maps Syria Conflict” Voice of America. 14 March 2017. 41 See the Ushahidi website for more information: https://www.ushahidi.com 36 37