This week, Hanne Melin, eBay Director of Global Public Policy, spoke at the Basel Peace Forum, which is intended to inspire new and unconventional ideas for peacebuilding. She joined other leading personalities and decision-makers from business, diplomacy, academia, and civil society to discuss key aspects of war and violence across sectors and how to find new ways of overcoming them. Hanne presented at a workshop focused on Artificial Intelligence and virtual platforms and how they could potentially be used for short-term and long-term peacebuilding and conflict prevention.

Hanne challenged the workshop participants to think about technology enabled trade as capable of creating a more peaceful world in view of how it connects individuals, enables inclusive economic opportunities and allows for a sense of personal fulfilment. eBay data has demonstrated that the online commerce platform is allowing micro and small businesses - in advanced and developing countries - to take part in exporting at unprecedented levels and reap its many benefits. Hanne noted there is broad agreement that traditional trade, particularly in a regional setting, has a pacifying as well as war-deterring effect. This stems from the economic ties and interdependencies it creates between countries. The new model of trade taking place through platforms like eBay is taking this one step further and creating commerce connections between individuals on a global scale. These connections help to create trust between individuals across great distances. The commerce taking place is also inclusive and empowers broader based economic growth and export diversification. Hanne pointed out that numerous academic studies have cited these as three key components for conflict reduction. She concluded by touching on the enablers of this new model of global trade - connectivity to the Internet at low cost and without gatekeepers and access to ecommerce, payments, and logistics platforms – and encouraged participants to include them in a framework for future peacebuilding efforts.