Enabling inclusive peace mediation through digital participation: CMI & Inclus
CMI (Crisis Management Initiative, the Martti Ahtisaari Peace Foundation) deployed Inclus in Armenia as part of a conflict dialogue and foresight process involving dozens of stakeholders. Participants were able to submit ideas via smartphones, vote on conflict drivers, and visualise areas of consensus in real time through Inclus's interactive data analytics.
The collaboration project that took place in Armenia is documented in CMI's Practical Guidance Note for Mediators on Digital Inclusion, a publication developed jointly with the United Nations Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (UN DPPA) and the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO).
Conflict background: Armenia and the South Caucasus
Armenia sits at the heart of the South Caucasus — a region shaped by centuries of successive empires and surrounded by large regional powers including Turkey, Iran, Russia, and Azerbaijan. This geographic position has defined Armenia's enduring struggle to maintain sovereignty and pursue democratic development.
The Armenian people carry the profound trauma of the 1915 genocide, in which over one million Armenians were killed by the Ottoman Turks. This memory shapes how Armenians perceive their neighbours to this day — particularly Turkey and Azerbaijan, whom many regard as a shared threat.
The central territorial dispute has been over Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave populated predominantly by ethnic Armenians but internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan. In 2020, a 44-day war ended Armenia's decades-long de facto control over the area, with Azerbaijan — aided decisively by Turkish-supplied drones — recapturing large portions of the territory. The defeat triggered a new cycle of instability, compounded by the weakening of Russian influence following its invasion of Ukraine — the very power Armenia had long relied on for security.
Armenia now faces the complex challenge of reorienting its security architecture while pursuing democratic and European aspirations in a rapidly shifting regional order. What happens in the South Caucasus continues to reverberate well beyond the region.
Traditional challenges with peace processes
Peace processes have long faced a structural challenge: meaningful participation is difficult to achieve at scale, particularly for women, youth, diaspora groups, and communities in remote or insecure areas.
Traditional in-person mediation formats risk amplifying the voices of those already connected to political processes while systematically sidelining others. CMI sought to address this through digital inclusion; the strategic use of technology to enable and expand genuine stakeholder participation at all stages of a peace process.
Participatory foresight in Armenia
CMI deployed Inclus in Armenia as part of a conflict dialogue and foresight process involving dozens of stakeholders. Inclus design addressed one of the most persistent barriers to inclusive dialogue: hierarchy and speaking confidence.
In traditional workshop settings, the loudest or most senior voices tend to dominate. Inclus equalised participation by allowing all attendees to submit inputs simultaneously and anonymously, regardless of rank or communication style.
Interactive visualisations then revealed where convergence existed across political divides — instantly, without the need to manually compile and interpret responses.
Technology must serve the process and not drive it
At the core of CMI's digital inclusion approach is the recognition that technology must serve the process and not drive it. Inclus was selected because it combines the scale of digital engagement with the rigour of structured participatory analysis. Key capabilities that made the difference included:
Simultaneous, anonymous input. All participants could contribute ideas and scores at the same time, removing the chilling effect of hierarchy and enabling more candid engagement.
Real-time visualisation of consensus and divergence. Inclus' dynamic data visualisation transformed large volumes of qualitative and quantitative input into intuitive formats, allowing mediators and stakeholders to immediately identify shared priorities and contested claims.
Scalable data collection and AI-assisted analysis. Inclus enabled the collection of large amounts of structured and unstructured data, which could be summarised and analysed efficiently.
Multi-language and mobile accessibility. By supporting smartphone-based participation and accommodating linguistic diversity, Inclus reduced the infrastructure barriers that typically exclude rural or displaced communities from structured dialogue processes.
Designing for inclusion and not just access
CMI's guidance note emphasises that digital inclusion requires more than providing access to technology; it demands deliberate process design. The CMI–Inclus collaboration reflected this principle throughout:
Hybrid mediation strategy: Inclus was deployed as a complement to face-to-face engagement, not a replacement for it. Digital tools extended the reach of dialogue processes while in-person interactions continued to build trust and manage the nuanced communication that technology cannot replicate.
Do No Harm: Participant safety was prioritised over participation rates. Anonymisation features ensured that inputs could not be traced back to individuals in sensitive political contexts.
Context-first design: Tools were selected and configured based on a thorough understanding of local infrastructure, cultural norms, and community preferences.
Local ownership: CMI partnered with local civil society organisations to ensure participants could meaningfully engage with and sustain the digital processes introduced.
Broader impact: rethinking who gets a seat at the table
"Digital inclusion helps build more legitimate, sustainable, and just peace." — CMI Practical Guidance Note for Mediators on Digital Inclusion
The collaboration between CMI and Inclus reflects a broader shift in how peace practitioners think about participation.
When digital tools are thoughtfully designed and embedded in genuine political strategies, they can lower barriers that have historically excluded large segments of conflict-affected populations; particularly women, youth, and geographically dispersed communities.
By processing qualitative data at scale and turning it into actionable insight, Inclus allowed CMI to conduct consultations that would have been logistically impossible through traditional means alone.
The approach also enabled more equitable facilitation: where power dynamics and speaking confidence once shaped whose voice was heard, participatory digital tools enabled all inputs to carry equal analytical weight.
The Practical Guidance Note, launched in April 2026 in partnership with UN DPPA and PRIO, now serves as a field reference for mediators worldwide, with Inclus featured as a leading example of how digital sensemaking software can advance inclusive peace processes.
To learn more about how Inclus supports peace and conflict resolution processes, visit inclus.com/peace-and-conflict-resolution or book a demo.