A research facility from the Centre for Alternatives, funded by UNDP, harnessing open data to advance peace and tolerance in Bangladesh.
The Bangladesh Peace Observatory collects different streams of publicly available data on
violence in Bangladesh, regularly updates the platform with newer incidents, conducts
research, and provides education opportunities to better understand the state of violence
and promote peace.
Alongside real-time monitoring, the Observatory works backwards through the historical
record to build one of the largest open-access repositories of data on violence in the
world — currently spanning 1991 to today, more than 225,000 individually-coded incidents.
The platform supports nine programmes and activities that advance knowledge and the
understanding of peace in Bangladesh.
Programmes & activities
Nine ways the Observatory works
01
Open-access data platform
The Observatory itself — 30+ years of geocoded incident data, browsable and filterable for everyone.
02
Oral micro-narratives
Collecting, documenting, and analysing first-person accounts of violence as a counterweight to aggregate statistics.
03
Peace Report series
Annual State of Peace + quarterly thematic reports synthesising the data into citable analysis.
04
International conferences
Convening academics, practitioners, and policymakers — Dhaka and abroad — around peace and conflict research.
05
Joint research
Collaborative studies with universities, government partners, and civil-society institutions.
06
Fellowships
Funded research fellowships for aspiring scholars working on violence prevention and social cohesion.
07
Exchange opportunities
International exchange placements for early-career researchers across the network.
08
PVE certificate course
A professional certificate programme on Preventing Violent Extremism for practitioners.
09
Institutional partnerships
Joint programmes with government agencies, international organisations, local NGOs, and universities.
Backed by
A research collaboration with institutional roots
The Observatory began at the Centre for Genocide Studies, University of Dhaka, and is
now hosted by the Centre for Alternatives with continued funding support from UNDP
Bangladesh.
