Presentation of Internal Report at UN Headquarters
The ETH Center for Security Studies presented the findings from an internal report on conflict-event prediction to the UN Operations and Crisis Centre.
In October 2023, researchers from the ETH Center for Security Studies (CSS) presented the main findings of an internal report to the UN Operations and Crisis Centre (UNOCC) and other partners at UN headquarters. The presentation summarised research on the short-term forecasting of conflict events for large UN peace operations and offered practical recommendations on how the UN Department of Peace Operations (DPO) can further strengthen the collection of incident data in conflict zones. Following the presentation, ETH researchers and UN staff discussed a variety of aspects involved when applying machine-learning methods in a peacekeeping context.
Key Takeaways
- The CSS and UNOCC agreed to continue their collaboration on ‘Conflict-Event Prediction for UN Peacekeeping’ as a joint research project.
- Specifically, both parties converged on the long-term goal of a human-in-the-loop approach that combines ‘algorithmic' conflict predictions with human assessments.
- UN staff expressed appreciation for the CSS’s practical recommendations on the harmonisation of incident data at the DPO, which were eventually used to draw up terms of reference for a new staff position.
