Where is the DICAN Summit being held?

The DICAN Summit is being held in the city of Abuja, NGA.

What is the primary focus of the DICAN Summit?

The summit focuses on the critical intersection of information warfare and global investment, exploring how digital threats impact economic stability and investment opportunities.

When does the DICAN Summit take place?

The DICAN Summit is scheduled to begin in the spring.

DICAN Summit 2026

Name: DICAN Summit 2026
Start: 2026-05-20T00:00:00Z
End: 2026-05-20T00:00:00Z
Location: Abuja

May 20, 2026Abuja, NigeriaIn-person

Registration open

The DICAN Summit is an international gathering focused on the critical intersection of information warfare and global investment. Hosted in Abuja, NGA, the event brings together stakeholders from various sectors to discuss strategies for navigating the complexities of the modern geopolitical landscape. Participants will explore how information operations impact economic stability and investment opportunities worldwide.

Committees & topics

Topics
Information Warfare and FIMI: Securing Trade, Investment and Global Stability Through Diplomacy, Intelligence and Media · Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) · Global Security in an Era of Multipolar Competition · Global Trade: Fragmentation, Industrial Policy and the Future of the WTO · Cross-Border Investment, Screening Regimes and the Politics of Capital · The Practice of Diplomacy in a Contested Order · Intelligence Services, Oversight and Inter-State Cooperation · Media, Press Freedom and the Information Environment

Why it matters

In an era defined by rapid technological advancement and interconnected economies, information warfare has emerged as a significant threat to global stability and investment. This summit addresses how state and non-state actors leverage digital platforms to influence public opinion, disrupt markets, and undermine national security. Understanding these dynamics is crucial for policymakers, investors, and businesses seeking to protect their interests and foster resilient economic environments.

The discussions at the DICAN Summit will highlight the need for robust cybersecurity frameworks, international cooperation, and strategic communication to counter disinformation campaigns and protect critical infrastructure. The event provides a platform for sharing best practices and developing collaborative approaches to mitigate risks associated with information warfare, thereby safeguarding global investment flows and promoting sustainable development. The insights gained are vital for any entity operating in the international arena, emphasizing the proactive measures required to maintain competitive advantage and security.

How to prepare

To prepare effectively for the DICAN Summit, delegates should focus on understanding the multifaceted nature of information warfare and its economic implications. Reviewing materials on topics such as cyber espionage, propaganda, and the weaponization of social media will provide a strong foundation. Consider how these tactics are employed by various state and non-state actors and their potential impact on different industries and regions.

Delegates should also research the current global investment climate, paying particular attention to sectors vulnerable to information warfare, such as technology, finance, and critical infrastructure. Familiarity with international efforts to regulate digital spaces and promote cybersecurity will be beneficial. Engaging with the concepts of Dynamic Analysis and Engagement Strategies can help in formulating effective responses to the challenges discussed at the summit. Furthermore, understanding the perspectives of key countries, including those with significant digital capabilities or those frequently targeted by information campaigns, will enrich participation.

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 4 countries stand on the core issues in play. Click through for the full country profile.

Nigeria

As the host nation, NGA is keen to position itself as a leader in addressing information warfare and attracting global investment, emphasizing regional stability and digital resilience.

Role in topic

NGA plays a crucial role by hosting this summit, aiming to foster dialogue and solutions for information warfare challenges, particularly within the African context, and to showcase its potential as an investment hub.

United States

The USA views information warfare as a significant national security threat and advocates for international cooperation, robust cybersecurity, and democratic resilience to protect its economic interests and global influence.

Role in topic

The USA is a major player in both information technology and global investment, making its perspective on countering digital threats and securing international markets central to discussions on information warfare and economic stability.

China

CHN emphasizes state sovereignty in cyberspace and seeks to develop its own information infrastructure while participating in global governance discussions, often with a focus on economic development and technological self-reliance.

Role in topic

CHN's significant technological advancements and economic footprint mean its approach to information control and digital investment strategies are key considerations for global discussions on information warfare and economic security.

Russia

RUS is often implicated in information warfare activities and views the digital domain as a critical arena for geopolitical competition, emphasizing national security and strategic influence.

Role in topic

RUS's documented involvement in information operations makes its perspective on the nature and impact of information warfare highly relevant, particularly in discussions concerning geopolitical stability and the protection of investment.

Topics & background

The background behind each topic and the actors that shape it.

Information Warfare and FIMI: Securing Trade, Investment and Global Stability Through Diplomacy, Intelligence and Media

Information warfare has moved from a peripheral intelligence concern to a central feature of 21st-century statecraft. The EU's European External Action Service formally adopted the term Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) in 2022 to describe coordinated, often state-linked campaigns that distort the information environment without necessarily breaking domestic law. Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Chinese influence operations targeting Taiwan and the South China Sea narrative, and Iranian campaigns around the Gaza conflict have all demonstrated how synthetic media, inauthentic networks, and captured outlets can shape battlefield outcomes, sanctions coalitions, and capital flows. The economic stakes are substantial. Disinformation has been linked to market volatility, sovereign credit perceptions, sanctions evasion narratives, and targeted attacks on companies seen as strategically important. Investors and trading partners increasingly price in 'narrative risk' alongside political risk, while critical supply chains in semiconductors, energy, and rare earths are battlegrounds for competing information campaigns. The G7 Rapid Response Mechanism, NATO StratCom Centre of Excellence in Riga, and the EU's EEAS StratCom division have built attribution and exposure capacity, but global coordination remains uneven. A collaborative response cuts across diplomacy (norms-setting at the UN and OECD), intelligence (joint attribution and downgrading of classified indicators for public release), and media (verification standards, provenance technologies like C2PA, and platform transparency). The core dispute is how to defend the information space without empowering states to police speech, and how democracies and non-aligned states can build common detection and disclosure standards in an environment where authoritarian actors deny the very category of 'foreign interference.'

Key players

Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI)

FIMI is a doctrine and analytical framework formalized by the EU's European External Action Service to capture a category of behavior broader than 'disinformation': intentional, manipulative conduct by foreign state or state-linked actors that threatens values, procedures, and political processes. Unlike traditional propaganda, FIMI emphasizes Tactics, Techniques and Procedures (TTPs) drawn from cybersecurity frameworks such as DISARM, allowing analysts to track campaigns the way they track malware. The first EEAS FIMI Threat Report in 2023 documented hundreds of incidents, predominantly attributed to Russian and Chinese ecosystems. The phenomenon predates the term. Soviet 'active measures,' the 2016 interference in the US election, the Brexit referendum debates, and operations around COVID-19 vaccines all foreshadowed today's environment. What has changed is scale and automation: generative AI enables low-cost synthetic content, while platform fragmentation (Telegram, TikTok, X, regional apps) complicates monitoring. Major recent cases include Russia's 'Doppelganger' operation cloning European news outlets, China's 'Spamouflage' network, and Iranian operations amplifying Gaza-related content. The diplomatic dispute centers on definitions and remedies. The EU, G7, and many democracies favor exposure, sanctions on enablers, and platform due diligence (e.g., the EU Digital Services Act). Russia, China, and several Global South states warn that 'FIMI' frameworks risk becoming pretexts for Western censorship and infringe on sovereignty in cyberspace, preferring instead the UN OEWG track. The unresolved question is whether a multilateral norm against FIMI is achievable, or whether responses will remain regional and coalition-based.

Key players

Global Security in an Era of Multipolar Competition

The post-Cold War security order has eroded markedly since 2014, accelerating after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the October 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel and ensuing Gaza war. Major war has returned to Europe, the Red Sea has seen sustained Houthi attacks on commercial shipping, the Sahel has experienced a wave of coups and the withdrawal of Western forces, and tensions across the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea remain at multi-decade highs. Arms control architecture has thinned: New START is suspended in practice, the INF Treaty collapsed in 2019, and the CFE Treaty regime is defunct. New domains have moved to the center of security: cyber operations against critical infrastructure, militarization of outer space (including Russian ASAT tests and discussion of nuclear anti-satellite capabilities), and autonomous weapons. Non-state actors continue to matter — ISIS-K, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and various Sahelian insurgencies — but state-on-state confrontation, including the consolidation of an 'axis' of cooperation among Russia, Iran, North Korea, and to some extent China, now drives the agenda. The central dispute is whether the existing UN-centered collective security system, anchored in the Security Council, can still function when permanent members are direct parties to major conflicts. Reform proposals range from expanding the Council to limiting the veto in mass-atrocity situations (the ACT Group code of conduct). At the same time, minilateral formats — AUKUS, the Quad, NATO–Indo-Pacific partnerships, BRICS+ — are filling gaps, raising questions about fragmentation versus pluralism in global security governance.

Key players

Global Trade: Fragmentation, Industrial Policy and the Future of the WTO

The rules-based trading system built around the WTO has come under sustained strain. The Appellate Body has been paralyzed since December 2019 due to US blocking of judicial appointments, leaving dispute settlement partially functional through the MPIA workaround. US–China trade tensions, beginning with Section 301 tariffs in 2018 and extending into export controls on advanced semiconductors and the CHIPS and IRA subsidies, have normalized industrial policy among major economies. The EU has responded with its own Critical Raw Materials Act, Net-Zero Industry Act, and Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). Geopolitical shocks have reshaped trade flows. Russia's invasion of Ukraine triggered the largest sanctions package in modern history, rerouted European energy trade, and disrupted global grain markets. Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping in 2023–2024 have raised insurance and freight costs and pushed firms toward 'friend-shoring' and 'China+1' strategies. Developing economies face higher financing costs, debt distress (Zambia, Sri Lanka, Ghana), and concerns that green subsidies in the North will further marginalize their industrial prospects. The core dispute at the WTO and in G20 trade discussions is how to reconcile legitimate security and climate concerns with non-discrimination obligations. Reform agendas focus on restoring binding dispute settlement by 2024–2026 mandates, disciplining industrial subsidies, integrating digital trade, and addressing developing-country concerns about special and differential treatment. The outcome will determine whether the world consolidates into competing trade blocs or sustains a thinner but still multilateral core.

Key players

Cross-Border Investment, Screening Regimes and the Politics of Capital

Global foreign direct investment flows have stagnated since the pandemic, with UNCTAD reporting persistent weakness in greenfield investment to developing economies outside a handful of strategic sectors. At the same time, the politics of investment has intensified. The United States has expanded the role of CFIUS, introduced outbound investment screening on China in advanced semiconductors, quantum, and AI (Executive Order 14105, 2023), and used the Inflation Reduction Act to attract capital into domestic clean-tech. The EU's FDI Screening Regulation, in force since 2020, is being upgraded, and the bloc is consulting on outbound screening. China's outbound investment has shifted from large infrastructure under the Belt and Road Initiative toward 'small and beautiful' projects and strategic stakes in critical minerals, electric vehicles, and batteries — increasingly in Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. Gulf sovereign wealth funds (PIF, ADIA, Mubadala, QIA) have become decisive capital allocators in sports, AI, and energy transition assets. Investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) is under pressure, with several states withdrawing from the Energy Charter Treaty. The central tension is between openness — long credited with productivity gains and development — and security-driven controls over who owns what. Developing countries warn that proliferating screening regimes and 'de-risking' rhetoric will raise the cost of capital and entrench inequality. Multilateral discussions at UNCTAD, the OECD, and within the G20 are attempting to set common principles for investment screening that preserve a level playing field without abandoning legitimate national-security review.

Key players

The Practice of Diplomacy in a Contested Order

Diplomacy as an institution is being tested by the simultaneous return of great-power rivalry, the proliferation of conflicts (Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, Myanmar), and the rise of minilateral and informal forums alongside the UN. The Vienna Conventions on Diplomatic and Consular Relations (1961, 1963) still provide the legal backbone, but tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats between Russia and Western states since 2022 have reached scales unseen since the Cold War, and embassies have been closed or downgraded in multiple theaters. New formats are reshaping practice. BRICS expansion in 2024 to include the UAE, Egypt, Iran, and Ethiopia, the institutionalization of the Quad, AUKUS, and the I2U2, and African Union membership of the G20 all reflect a more crowded diplomatic field. Mediation has diversified: Qatar and Egypt in Gaza hostage talks, Türkiye and the UN on the Black Sea Grain Initiative, Oman on US–Iran channels, and Saudi Arabia in Ukraine peace consultations and the China-brokered Saudi–Iran rapprochement of 2023. The core question is whether traditional bilateral and UN-centered diplomacy can keep pace with crises that require fast, multi-stakeholder responses, and whether norms of diplomatic immunity and good faith negotiation will hold as states increasingly treat diplomacy as an extension of strategic competition. Track II diplomacy, digital diplomacy, and the role of non-state mediators (HD Centre, the Vatican, ICRC) are growing in importance alongside formal channels.

Key players

Intelligence Services, Oversight and Inter-State Cooperation

Intelligence has shifted from a discreet adjunct of foreign policy to a more public instrument of statecraft. US and UK intelligence agencies pioneered a strategy of 'pre-bunking' before Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, declassifying assessments to deter and delegitimize Russian planning. Since then, downgrading and sharing of intelligence with allies and the public has become a recognized tool against FIMI, sanctions evasion, and proliferation. Long-standing partnerships such as Five Eyes (USA, GBR, CAN, AUS, NZL) have deepened, while new arrangements have emerged across the Indo-Pacific. At the same time, intelligence services confront an expanded mission set: countering cyber intrusions linked to Russia (APT28, Sandworm), China (Volt Typhoon, Salt Typhoon), Iran, and North Korea; tracking sanctioned financial flows; monitoring AI and biotech proliferation risks; and managing relationships with private sector platforms that hold critical data. Revelations from the Snowden disclosures (2013) and subsequent leaks continue to shape debates about mass surveillance, encryption, and civil liberties. The core disputes are about oversight and norms. Domestically, legislatures struggle to supervise rapidly evolving technical capabilities. Internationally, there is no agreed framework limiting peacetime espionage, even as cyber operations blur the line between intelligence collection and offensive action. Cases such as the use of commercial spyware (Pegasus) against journalists and dissidents have prompted the US-led Joint Statement on Efforts to Counter the Proliferation and Misuse of Commercial Spyware (2023), but global consensus remains elusive.

Key players

Media, Press Freedom and the Information Environment

Global media is undergoing a structural transformation. Traditional outlets face collapsing advertising revenue, while attention has migrated to algorithmically curated platforms — Meta, YouTube, TikTok, X, and regional networks such as WeChat and Telegram. Generative AI now allows the rapid creation of synthetic text, images, audio, and video, lowering the cost of both legitimate content production and large-scale manipulation. Press freedom indicators tracked by Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists have declined in most regions over the past decade, with record numbers of journalists killed during the Gaza war and continued imprisonment of reporters in China, Russia, Iran, and Belarus. State-aligned international broadcasters — RT, Sputnik, CGTN, PressTV, alongside Western counterparts such as VOA, BBC World Service, France Médias Monde, and Deutsche Welle — compete for audiences in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, where information markets are highly contested. Regulatory responses diverge sharply: the EU's Digital Services Act and European Media Freedom Act emphasize platform accountability and editorial independence; the US relies more on First Amendment-constrained transparency rules; China and Russia have moved toward tight state control and the criminalization of 'fakes' about the military. The central tension is between protecting open information ecosystems necessary for democracy and trade — and addressing real harms from manipulation, harassment of journalists, and platform-driven polarization. UNESCO's Guidelines for the Governance of Digital Platforms (2023) and the Global Forum for Media Development are attempting to articulate shared principles, but enforcement and the role of AI-generated content remain unresolved.

Key players

Resources

News, lessons, and country profiles to prep for DICAN Summit 2026.

Recent reporting to ground your prep

Arming an archipelago: Is time running out for Europe's oldest DMZ? | Euronews

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Lessons

Bite-sized lessons to build the basics

Hidden Stakeholders

Engagement Strategies

Dynamic Analysis

Stakeholder Mapping Workshop

Courses

Guided courses that go deeper on the topic

Multilateral Negotiation

Media & Press Relations

Advanced Negotiation

Policy Brief Writing

The states in play, with the data that shapes their stance

Country dossier

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By committee

Frequently asked questions

DICAN Summit 2026

May 20, 2026Abuja, NigeriaIn-person

Registration open

Committees & topics

Topics
Information Warfare and FIMI: Securing Trade, Investment and Global Stability Through Diplomacy, Intelligence and Media · Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) · Global Security in an Era of Multipolar Competition · Global Trade: Fragmentation, Industrial Policy and the Future of the WTO · Cross-Border Investment, Screening Regimes and the Politics of Capital · The Practice of Diplomacy in a Contested Order · Intelligence Services, Oversight and Inter-State Cooperation · Media, Press Freedom and the Information Environment

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 4 countries stand on the core issues in play. Click through for the full country profile.

Nigeria

As the host nation, NGA is keen to position itself as a leader in addressing information warfare and attracting global investment, emphasizing regional stability and digital resilience.

Role in topic

United States

Role in topic

China

Role in topic

Russia

RUS is often implicated in information warfare activities and views the digital domain as a critical arena for geopolitical competition, emphasizing national security and strategic influence.

Role in topic