| We condemn any actions that create the conditions for violence and war. We condemn actions that violate Human Rights. We also condemn any effort to mislead people with false/fake news and data that is not verifiable. All technologies, media platforms, and online behaviors can be weaponized; they can produce swords that conquer territories or ploughshares that grow food, water and security. Hope for a more peaceful world has been the aspiration of many generations. Conflicts that turn to violence remind us of the importance of peace and stability, globally. Too often, we focus long-term efforts on the recovery from violence and not on the avoidance of violence. Engineers must collaborate with colleagues from all disciplines including law, finance and social sciences to address the issues of violence, aggression and pressing global challenges. Humanity must resolve differences by exercising dialogue, respect for one another, empathy and conflict avoidance. Humanity has made great progress in helping avoid war. Engineers have been integrally involved in these efforts. The Peace Engineering Consortium supports policy- making by implementing complex, holistic systems models to measure, analyze, link and predict the dynamic interactions of peace interventions, including factors that are often in tension, such as peacebuilding and conflict management, security and development, trust and misinformation, corruption and civil rights, climate change and migration. These quality-of-life elements form the glue for peace. With transparency models and tools, we can capitalize on digital repositories, open-source data and open-source intelligence, include standards to measure the economic and social value of peace and its derivatives, and create situational awareness maps and early warning systems. These tools can assist diplomats, policy makers, global corporations, insurers and financial markets in designing and implementing strategies that promote human security and well-being. The world needs to quickly and effectively embrace a global perspective that stands and welcomes outcomes towards peace and equitable prosperity. The IFEES and GEDC members can lead our capacity to establish effective engineering that assures an inspired and peaceful solution to world problems. More urgently, we all must work to defuse the situation in which we find ourselves today. We stand in support of the citizens of all generations, innovators, scholars and activists who work to build peace in Ukraine and all over the world. |
| Sincerely Yours, IFEES Executive Committee GEDC Executive Committee IFEES GEDC Secretariat |
