New Approaches Within the Peace Mission in Africa Using the Example of Uganda

The modern Westphalian international state system was based on the principles of national sovereignty and equality of states, and was a result of the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648). Wars used to play a key role in shaping international relations and still have a decisive part in forming state capacities in the twenty-first century. However, some meaningful qualitative changes regarding the nature of armed conflicts pose critical challenges to the international system as they reshape the concept of sovereignty and responsibility. “New wars” theorists stress that such qualitative changes in wars also induce a fundamental shift from the earlier peacebuilding approach characterized with military and law enforcement priorities. Technological revolution and artificial intelligence (AI) have changed social interactions, and also have relevant implications for armed conflicts and peace operations. The United Nations (UN), which is still by far the largest actor in the field of peace operations, is to enhance its analytical as well as predictive capacities, and support the adoption of automated algorithmic systems to manage large-scale data and better react in conflict situations. UN Pulse Lab Kampala aims at embracing such mission targets when applying Automated Speech Recognition (ASR) toolkits for African languages, Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques and text-mining algorithms for verbal radio broadcasts throughout Uganda. Based on fieldwork experiences at Pulse Lab Kampala, and systematic literature review (SLR), this paper aims to review past results; present new approaches in the field of armed conflict resolution; and explore the role and activity of Pulse Lab in the application of artificial intelligence for the prevention and management of crises.