News & Announcements

Toda Policy Briefs picked up by Washington DC's Wilson Center

Feb 2020 - News

Toda policy briefs on Climate Change have reached new audiences as posts on the New Security Beat blog. The blog is part of the Wilson Center's Environmental Change and Security Program. Links to the blog posts, which are condensed versions of the policy briefs written by Volker Boege, Ursula Rakova, Kate Higgins and Josiah Maesua, can be found below: https://www.newsecuritybeat.org/2019/10/avoid-conflict-responses-climate-change-oceania-heed-customary-actors-institutions/ https://www.newsecuritybeat.org/2020/01/community-input-improves-climate-change-induced-resettlement-effort/ https://www.newsecuritybeat.org/2019/11/climate-change-conflict-peacebuilding-solomon-island-communities/

[SHARE] Tackling climate change "more crucial even than disarmament," says UN Geneva Chief

Feb 2020 - News

Click here to read the article. Tatiana Valovaya, Director-General of the United Nations in Geneva, says that while nations continue to grapple with major global issues as the new year dawns, such as disarmament and climate change, there is reason to hope that they will work together to resolve the biggest threats to humanity. Listen to an interview here. Read more... [Quotation] https://news.un.org/en/audio/2020/01/1054891

[SHARE] Toda Peace Institute Director Professor Kevin Clements expresses concerns at news that New Zealand is now the fourth largest player in the global space industry

Jan 2020 - News

Click here to read the article. The once-sleepy Mahia peninsula is now the site of regular rocket launches but a plan to put US spy satellites into space is causing concern... Read more... [Quotation] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/25/aiming-for-the-stars-how-new-zealands-space-industry-is-causing-turbulence

Toda Peace Institute workshop, Build Peace Conference

Dec 2019 - News

A Social Media and Peacebuilding workshop presented by Toda Peace Institute, in association with the Build Peace 2019 conference, brought together ten vibrant peacebuilders and journalists from ten countries to shares stories of how social media is impacting their countries and communities. The workshop entitled “The Impact of Social Media on Conflict Dynamics” drew on material presented in policy briefs which are available on the Toda Peace Institute website. The workshop explored common themes across the policy briefs, including how governments and terror groups are using social media to mobilize violent attacks and the role of this technology in polarising politically fragile communities. Many of the policy briefs conclude with recommendations for policy makers, governments, social media and tech companies, and the media. On Wednesday 14 November, the group presented a workshop to a variety of NGOs and U.S. think tanks, followed by a presentation to 200 people on Thursday 15 November as part of the main Build Peace conference. On the final day, the Build Peace conference hosted a session led by Toda Peace Institute Senior Research Fellow Dr Lisa Schirch on how to create a “Digital Neighborhood Watch”, by bringing conflict resolution principles into the online space. The objective is to give civil society more skills for handling disinformation and disrupting hate speech online.   The Build Peace conference capped off a busy year for Toda’s Social Media and Peace building programme, with Dr Schirch attending a number of conferences and convening panels in the USA, Turkey and England, developing working relationships with NGOs including Alliance for Peacebuilding and USIP, and meeting with US-based tech companies.

Climate Change and Conflict in the Pacific: Prevention, Management and the Enhancement of Community Resilience

Nov 2019 - News

A Climate Change and Conflict workshop which brought together Japanese, Pacific, North American and European scholars and policy makers was held in Tokyo from 11-13 September 2019. The workshop entitled Climate Change and Conflict in the Pacific: Prevention, Management and the Enhancement of Community Resilience, was hosted by Toda Peace Institute and the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Otago. The workshop, which was a follow up to a successful event held in Auckland, New Zealand, in 2018, adopted a ‘triangular’ approach: the workshop heard first from international scholars who presented the ‘state of the art’ of research on climate change, conflict and security, then from Pacific Islanders who presented their local and regional research findings and their practice-based approaches, and finally from Japanese presenters who outlined the state of the debate in Japan. Issues addressed included water, land and food security; conflict-sensitive adaptation; climate change-induced migration; the significance of traditional knowledge; and the cultural dimension of climate change adaptation and its significance within the climate change-security/conflict nexus. The participants represented not only a broad geographic span, but also a range of viewpoints including academic, government policy, churches, NGOs, and Pacific community-based organisations. A common theme which emerged was the need to identify ways of working in partnership with key players in order to address the worst impacts of climate change. This includes listening to people’s own ways of knowing and the need to have an environment conducive for communicating across cultures. Addressing the disconnect between the academic world, lived experiences and policy discourse was seen as central to bridging the communication gap. With reference to this challenge, Director of Toda Peace Institute, Professor Kevin Clements, said “Communication has to happen in all directions. We have to build bridges not only between cultures, but also between the spheres of academic research and politics. In order for this dynamic to be useful, however, such connection must be aimed at higher levels of co-operation in the adaptation of vulnerable people to climate change. This is a central mission of the Toda Peace Institute.” A Toda Policy Brief based on the discussions of the workshop will be published on the Toda website in January 2020. A full workshop report will then also be available.