Abstract
Peace is a principal dimension of well-being and is the way out of inequity and violence. Thus, its measurement has drawn the attention of researchers, policymakers, and peacekeepers. During the last years, novel digital data streams have drastically changed the research in this field. The current study exploits information extracted from a new digital database called Global Data on Events, Location, and Tone (GDELT) to capture peace through the Global Peace Index (GPI). Applying predictive machine learning models, we demonstrate that news media attention from GDELT can be used as a proxy for measuring GPI at a monthly level. Additionally, we use explainable AI techniques to obtain the most important variables that drive the predictions. This analysis highlights each country’s profile and provides explanations for the predictions, and particularly for the errors and the events that drive these errors. We believe that digital data exploited by researchers, policymakers, and peacekeepers, with data science tools as powerful as machine learning, could contribute to maximizing the societal benefits and minimizing the risks to peace.
Highlights
IntroductionIn a major attempt to face them, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were introduced by the United Nations (UN) Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro in 2012
The global challenges regarding people’s well-being in today’s society are manifold
3.1 Global Peace Index (GPI) data GPI [13] ranks 163 independent states and territories according to their level of peace, and it was created by the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP)
Summary
In a major attempt to face them, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were introduced by the United Nations (UN) Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro in 2012. Considering that well-being is a vague and multi-dimensional concept, it cannot be captured as a whole but through a set of health, socio-economic, safety, environmental, and political dimensions [1, 2]. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) embodies these dimensions into 17 SDGs such as “Good Health and Well-Being”, “No Poverty”, and “Reduced inequalities” [3–5]. A crucial development is the inclusion of the SDG for “Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions”, considering that armed violence is on the rise and it is challenging to prevent it [6]. The rate of major wars declined over the (2022) 11:2 past decades, the number of civil conflicts and terrorist attacks increased in the last few years, even in developed countries [7]
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