Peace engineering as a pathway to the sustainable development goals

Kala Yarnall, Mira Olson, Ivonne Santiago and Craig Zelizer

Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2021, vol. 168, issue C

Abstract: Two billion people live in countries where sustainable development outcomes are affected by fragility, conflict, and violence. Conflict is a critical development challenge that threatens the successful achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. Business-as-usual practices that apply top-down approaches to development projects without considering the contextual dynamics are neither appropriate nor sufficient. To fully attain the Sustainable Development Goals, engineers must first recognize that development can only proceed when there is peace and stability, then must be prepared and willing to meet the complex challenges that threaten their long-term achievement. Peace Engineering is an emerging field dedicated to reducing and eliminating conflict-motivated violence through the use of innovative research, technology, policy, systems-level thinking and design. Peace Engineering provides a clear pathway for engineers, scientists, and technologists to apply strong technical skills and system approaches to meet the challenges of the Sustainable Development Goals by incorporating conflict and peace outcomes into business practices, project design and implementation. This paper explores opportunities for engineers to directly advance the Sustainable Development Goals, identifies critical issues that hinder the progress of these goals, introduces Peace Engineering as a guiding framework for overcoming sustainability challenges, and provides examples of effective peace engineering projects and outcomes.

Keywords: Peacebuilding; Sustainable development; Peace engineering (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040162521001852
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:tefoso:v:168:y:2021:i:c:s0040162521001852

DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2021.120753

Access Statistics for this article

Technological Forecasting and Social Change is currently edited by Fred Phillips

More articles in Technological Forecasting and Social Change from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().