infoDev is exploring the transformative role that Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) can have in post-conflict nations during the process of reconstruction. The case studies look at countries at different stages of post-conflict reconstruction in Afghanistan, Liberia, Rwanda and Timor-Leste, and post-revolution in Tunisia.

Those who would use information and communication technology (ICT) in the cause of peace need to be cognizant of the risks as well as the benefits. ICT can facilitate positive dialogue but also hate speech. It can be used to fight corruption but also facilitate it. Simply giving people more information does not necessarily lead to predictable or positive results. As people become more informed, they may become more motivated to change their circumstances and to do so violently. On December 14, 2007, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) convened a group of experts in diverse fields to consider the role of ICT in promoting peace and conflict resolution. The one-day workshop was designed to consider current and emerging technologies and strategies for employing them in conflict management and diplomacy. It also aimed to explore how organizations with a role in promoting peace, like the U.S. Institute of Peace, can most effectively leverage technology in carrying out their missions. Information and Communication Technology and Peacebuilding: Summary of a Workshop reviews the group's discussions on number of key issues, illuminates certain practitioner needs, and suggests possible next steps.

This report from ICT4Peace project describes the background to the project before prsented some selected examples of how information technology has been used for the prevention of conflict and aid with recovery.

Peacekeeping operations, mandated through the United Nations and regional bodies, play an increasingly diverse role in the economic development of post-conflict countries. A key way that missions can use their administrative capacity to support economic recovery is developing effective technology use and acquisition strategies in host countries, which is a peacekeeping-wide policy goal outlined in the high-level Performance Peacekeeping report. Our paper introduces the theoretical channels through which missions' use of information communication technologies (ICTs) can support local economic development in post-conflict settings, making a theoretical argument that draws on both the literature on ICTs in peacekeeping and in economic development. We specify a Cobb-Douglas model that describes the potential impact of peacekeeping mission-led ICT investment on longer term economic development in combination with statistics on mission technology spending and internet use in host countries, providing a formal scaffold for our theoretical argument. Using this model and data in combination with a case study of the Central African Republic-based United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic mission, we argue that peacekeeping missions should use their purchasing power and stabilizing influence to attract value-added technology investment to support economic development.