News & Announcements

Click here to read the article. The bush fire crisis may be the moment that opens genuine but critically honest policy debate on climate change in Australia, including for the Department of Defence. For ideas on what its response might look like, Michael Thomas, Senior Fellow at the Center for Climate and Security says that the ADF could do worse than turn to its Kiwi partner. Read more... [Quotation] https://climateandsecurity.org/2020/01/29/bushfire-crisis-shows-australia-needs-a-strategic-response-to-climate-change/

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/

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

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

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.