Peacebuilding depends on understanding local narratives and community dynamics
Originally published on Global Voices
Four friends with laptops smile and take a selfie at a monument in Cotonou, Benin. Photo by Iwaria via Pexels. Free to use.
This article by Dan Campbell was originally published by Peace News Network on July 20, 2026. An edited version is being republished on Global Voices under a content partnership agreement.
How are African youth using Artificial intelligence (AI) to build peace? What are some of the challenges that come with using AI for peace?
Artificial intelligence often dominates headlines for its risks and misuses: Misinformation, surveillance, job losses, and deepfakes. Far less attention is paid to another story unfolding across Africa. Young people are using digital technologies to detect conflict early, counter hate speech, and strengthen community resilience.
A recent policy brief by the Institute for Security Studies (ISS Africa) argues that African youth are not simply adapting to AI. They are helping shape how digital technologies are used for peacebuilding. At the same time, the report warns that outdated policies, weak digital infrastructure, and persistent inequality threaten to limit that potential.
African governments, regional organizations, and civil society are beginning to develop AI governance frameworks that will influence how these technologies are used for years to come. One of the report’s central messages is that young people should not be consulted only after these frameworks are written. They should help design them from the beginning.
That argument deserves serious attention.
The report’s greatest strength is its refusal to portray African youth as passive recipients of technology. Instead, it presents them as knowledge creators who generate information, build digital tools, and shape public conversations about conflict. This is an important shift. Discussions of youth, peace, and security often focus on participation or representation. Here, the emphasis is on expertise. Young peacebuilders are producing the data, local knowledge, and digital innovations that increasingly underpin conflict prevention efforts.
The examples illustrate this well. Kenya’s Ushahidi platform demonstrated, following post-election violence from 2007 to 2008, how citizens could crowdsource reports during crises. More recent initiatives such as iVerify, piloted in Zambia in 2021, train young journalists to identify and counter false information before it spreads further. iVerify is now being used in Sierra Leone and Liberia as a Digital Public Good, where young journalists are being trained in fact-checking. Other youth-led projects combine machine learning, open-source intelligence, and community reporting to monitor elections, identify conflict risks, and challenge false narratives online.
Perhaps most importantly, the report avoids treating technology as a substitute for human relationships. Many of its strongest examples combine digital platforms with face-to-face dialogue, community organizing, local radio, and peace education. Digital tools become effective because they strengthen existing social networks rather than replace them.
The report is equally persuasive in highlighting barriers that continue to shape Africa’s digital future.
Internet access remains deeply unequal across the continent, especially in rural and conflict-affected areas. Women continue to face significant obstacles to digital participation. African languages remain poorly represented in many AI systems, limiting the ability of automated tools to understand local contexts or identify harmful content accurately. AI systems trained primarily in English or other Western languages risk failing to detect harmful content in African languages. These are not simply technical shortcomings. They are questions of inclusion, legitimacy, and whose voices are heard.
The discussion of language is especially important. Peacebuilding depends on understanding local narratives and community dynamics.
The recommendations are practical and well aligned with the evidence presented. They call for closer coordination between the African Union (AU)’s peace and technology institutions, greater investment in digital literacy and connectivity, stronger ethical oversight of AI, and formal mechanisms that allow young people to contribute directly to peace and security policymaking.
Even so, some questions remain unanswered.
The report presents a series of encouraging initiatives but offers relatively little evidence about their long-term impact. Which digital peacebuilding approaches have measurably reduced violence? Which have strengthened trust between communities? Which have struggled to move beyond successful pilot projects? As governments and donors invest more resources in AI for peacebuilding, these questions become increasingly important.
The paper also could have explored more fully the tension between AI’s promise and its potential misuse. Technologies developed for early warning or conflict monitoring may also expand state surveillance or restrict civic space if deployed without meaningful oversight. Strong governance frameworks become essential not simply because AI is powerful, but because power itself requires accountability.
These limitations, however, do not diminish the report’s broader contribution. Rather, they point toward the next generation of research that will be needed as digital peacebuilding matures across the continent.
At its heart, this policy brief offers a valuable reminder that peacebuilding is not only about technology. It is about people. AI may improve early warning systems, detect misinformation more quickly, or support better conflict analysis. Yet none of these advances will produce lasting peace unless they reflect local knowledge, community priorities, and public trust.
Across Africa, young people are already demonstrating what that future can look like. The challenge now is whether institutions will recognize them as equal partners in shaping it.
For policymakers, civil society organizations, and international partners, the message is clear: Investing in digital peacebuilding means investing in the people who understand their communities best. Africa’s AI future will be strongest not when technology replaces local leadership, but when it amplifies it.
