Peacebuilding organizations are grappling to adapt to the new opportunities and challenges. Academic literature claims that peacebuilding could be more successful and sustainable if it would rely more heavily on digital tools. In some areas of work, digital tools have been used for some time already, for instance mediation, prevention, the fight against radicalization and the prevention of ‘hate speech’ in social media. Although there have not been any thorough evaluations yet, experts claim that the hoped-for increase in effectiveness depends on the context the digital tools are used in.

This session presents experiences and challenges for contextualizing digital tools and discusses concerns and recommendations: What are the relevant context factors, the relevant stakeholders in the conflict context as well as the role of local actors in defining and interpreting context factors?