Making Peacekeeping Data Work for the International Community

Humanitarian and peacekeeping organisations rely on high quality information to ensure their own security and to deliver their mandate. Whether they have access to this information and are skilled in using it, is another matter. A number of UN Peacekeeping missions record the date and location of reported incidents, such as movements of militia and arms, summary executions and abductions, raids on villages, displacements of refugees and threats to UN staff, as well as political affairs such as meetings and treaties. This evidence is compiled in real time by the relevant Joint Mission Analysis Center (JMAC). Although used intensively during the lifetime of the mission, the data are often lost or archived rather than shared with outside agencies and scholars. This project aims to fully exploit the dataset collected by the UN mission in Darfur and for the first time to triangulate it with perceptions held by local communities, and by other data held by NGOs, academic data resources and from media sources.

The day-to-day pressures on UN operations mean that peacekeeping data collected in real time in the field are often under-exploited. By examining and analysing the data in a systematic way, the proposed project aims to better understand the dynamics of decision-making in a UN peacekeeping operation, the interaction between indigenous and external actors, and the changing dynamics of conflict. The project will bring together qualitative and quantitative scholars who will use innovative methodologies to show the potential of this data to inform policy and tell us about the changing character of violent conflict.

The underlying research question is whether there is consistency of practice and communality of perception in conflict situations and how this information may be converted into evidenced-based policymaking for peacekeeping and humanitarian relief operations. The project will put together a methodology for the quantitative and qualitative interrogation of the UN peacekeeping data from Darfur that can be replicated in other conflicts.

The project team have had discussions with Herve Ladsous, (UN Under-Secretary General for Peacekeeping) and Valentina Kalk of the statistical offices within United Nations Publications, examining ways we can work together to make the peacekeeping data more widely available to the research and NGO communities, using the Darfur peacekeeping dataset as a test case. One important aspect of this proposed project will be to build on this work to locate and evaluate data produced by other peacekeeping missions. We will also exploit linkages with colleagues at the OP Jindal Global University and the Jamsetji Tata Centre for Disaster Management in India who have engaged in similar work in relation to political violence in the North-East of India. Their experience will be vital in guiding us through methodological issues.

The project will make its findings available to NGOs, other UN agencies including UNHCR and other researchers. The GIS mining of the Darfur data will also allow the research team to develop spatial and historical understandings of this multifaceted security situation and enable its evolution to be studied in space and time. This in turn will enable the UN peacekeeping data to be correlated and contrasted with existing narratives of violence from local communities, humanitarian agencies and other actors in the region.

The main aim of the project is to make better use of already-existing information. The data from Darfur is a test case and we hope that the methodology we develop to mine this data can be applied to other cases, and be useful to the UN and other organisations in their mission planning.

The principal non-academic beneficiaries of the research will be those working in or with the humanitarian sector, and more generally those working on or in conflict zones. This includes international organisations (especially the United Nations) and INGOs, NGOs and bilateral donors. The sector is faced with a series of difficult ethical and practical challenges associated with a changing security context. It is not enough for organisations to have access to information; they must interrogate it to its fullest extent, and understand the implications of this information for policy. This project seeks to help those working in the humanitarian field better understand the information they have gathered, and develop ways in which the information can be made policy-relevant. In essence, the project seeks to enhance evidence-based decision-making.

The project involves the development of systematic ways in which UN peacekeeping data can be analysed. Once piloted on the data from Sudan, the methodology of data analysis should be applicable to other UN operations.
The secondary analysis of the UN data will open the evidence to UNHCR and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) with which the project will collaborate. The project will be of relevance to prominent NGOs present in the field such as MSF, Oxfam, WorldVision and Islamic Relief. HCRI is well networked in the humanitarian sector, with many of its staff having a humanitarian professional background. Collaboration with a humanitarian GIS expert (through MapAction, a humanitarian mapping agency) and the creation of situational maps will ensure that the project is informed by current information management practice in the humanitarian arena. Making data available to UN agencies that are currently unaware of its existence will itself constitute a demonstrable impact in enabling them adapt their planning, response times and contingency planning.
In particular it should enable NGOs and other actors to fully appreciate the violent circumstances in which they are intervening and the data will help enrich their analysis of the conflict zones they enter. The main impact of this research should therefore be to improve the coordination of UN agencies and NGOs, facilitate their decision making in the light of precedents and evidence, and enhance the conflict sensitivity of their programming.

Practitioners and NGO's analytical teams such as EPICENTRE (MSF) will have direct access to the data as soon as it is made non-disclosive - the website will open up this evidence to all NGOs in its GIS form and the GIS consultant will provide maps which will complements the ones produced by OCHA and other actors in the region. The project website will include a basic introduction to the peacekeeping datasets and means of customizing the GIS maps for the purpose of operational deployment in the region. It will contain a peer to peer component enabling users to compare notes and a blog zone for practitioners wishing to engage with the material. The humanitarian GIS consultant will use his/her networks to make the maps available to current actors in the field and to NGOs and OCHA in particular.

Given that a major part of the project is the triangulation of conflict data back to the communities that actually experienced the conflict, local communities - and prominent actors within local communities such as municipalities and mayors - will also benefit from the project information. They will be able to gain a clearer picture of the information-gathering systems available to international actors and the extent to which they are capable of conveying an accurate picture of the situation on the ground.