**Please note: Since this event is already at capacity, we are no longer accepting RSVPs. Please tune into our live webcast at the event beginning at 9 am EDT on Thursday, June 24, 2010 at www.usip.org/webcast.html. The webcast will feature a live chat and Twitter discussion (hashtag: #usipmobile), and online viewers will be able to pose their questions to panelists during the event.

Mobile phone technologies are the subject of considerable enthusiasm in the peacebuilding sector. In the past few years, they have been used in connection with campaigns to restrain election violence, reduce corruption, develop the news media, and support counter-insurgency to name just a few. Success has been significant, but mixed. Yet little has been done to evaluate systematically the factors of success or failure in the use of mobile phones for peacebuilding. 

So to best understand the true potential of these increasingly powerful tools, USIP -- in partnership with cell phone pioneer Mobile Accord (who raised a record sum of over $37 million within three weeks of Haiti’s earthquake crisis with their “Text HAITI to 90999” campaign), the National Defense University, the United Nation’s-mandated UPeace, and TechChange -- will bring together experts on international peacebuilding and mobile phone technology to focus on the use of mobile phones in one of the most difficult conflict environments today: Afghanistan. 

Using techniques pioneered in the 2009 Smart Tools for Smart Power program, we will evaluate the reality of cell phone deployments along three vectors, with three panels: 

• Improving governance -  rule of law and anti-corruption  

• Countering extremism - media development and counter-insurgency 

Go to our event page to find out more details.

For more information about this event, please contact Anand Varghese.