International Diplomatic and Security Conference (DICAN)

Name: International Diplomatic and Security Conference (DICAN)
Start: 2026-04-27T00:00:00Z
End: 2026-04-27T00:00:00Z
Location: Abuja

Apr 27, 2026Abuja, NigeriaIn-person

Registration open

The International Diplomatic and Security Conference (DICAN) is an annual event held in Abuja, Nigeria, focusing on the critical intersection of diplomacy, intelligence, and media in shaping national and global stability. The conference brings together diverse stakeholders to discuss contemporary challenges and opportunities in the international security landscape. DICAN serves as a platform for fostering dialogue and collaboration among policymakers, security experts, intelligence professionals, and media practitioners. Its objective is to contribute to a more secure and stable international environment by exploring innovative approaches to diplomatic engagement and security strategies.

Committees & topics

Topics
Nigeria's 4Ds Foreign Policy Strategy Amidst Global Security Challenges and the Age of Disinformation · Information Warfare and FIMI: Strengthening Security, Trade, and Investment Through Collaborative Truth · Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) · Global Security in a Multipolar, Contested Era · Global Trade: Fragmentation, Friendshoring, and the WTO's Crisis · Global Investment Flows in an Era of Geoeconomic Risk · Disinformation and the Integrity of Public Discourse · Diplomacy in a Multipolar and Digitally Contested World

Why it matters

In an increasingly complex global environment, the interplay between diplomacy, intelligence, and media is paramount for maintaining peace and stability. This conference addresses how these three pillars can be effectively integrated to navigate geopolitical shifts, counter emerging threats, and promote international cooperation. The discussions are particularly relevant given the evolving nature of conflicts and the rapid dissemination of information in the digital age.

The conference's focus on national and global stability highlights the interconnectedness of security challenges. Issues such as cyber warfare, transnational crime, and regional conflicts require a coordinated response that transcends traditional diplomatic boundaries. By bringing together experts from various fields, DICAN facilitates a holistic understanding of these challenges and encourages the development of comprehensive solutions. The emphasis on engagement strategies is crucial for effective international relations.

Furthermore, the event's location in Abuja, Nigeria, underscores the growing importance of African perspectives in global security dialogues. Nigeria, as a significant regional power, plays a vital role in addressing security concerns within Africa and contributing to broader international efforts. The conference provides a unique opportunity to examine how local and regional dynamics influence global security paradigms, and how these can be leveraged for more effective diplomatic and security outcomes.

How to prepare

To effectively engage with the themes of the International Diplomatic and Security Conference, delegates should undertake a thorough review of current geopolitical trends, with a particular focus on the African continent. Understanding the nuances of security challenges in regions such as the Sahel and the Horn of Africa, as well as the diplomatic efforts underway to address them, will be beneficial. Familiarity with the roles of various international organizations and regional bodies in conflict resolution and peacebuilding is also advisable.

Attendees should prepare to analyze the intricate relationships between state and non-state actors in shaping security outcomes. This includes understanding the impact of intelligence gathering on policy formulation and the role of media in influencing public opinion and international narratives. Applying frameworks like Dynamic Analysis can help in understanding complex situations. Consideration of The Power-Interest Grid can also provide valuable insights into stakeholder dynamics.

Delegates should also be prepared to discuss the ethical considerations surrounding intelligence operations and media reporting in sensitive security contexts. This involves examining how information is collected, analyzed, and disseminated, and the potential implications for human rights and international law. A critical understanding of Hidden Stakeholders in security discussions is also important for a comprehensive perspective.

Country perspectives

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

Nigeria

A key player in regional security and diplomacy, advocating for African solutions to African problems while engaging with global partners.

Role in topic

Nigeria hosts the conference, highlighting its central role in addressing security challenges in West Africa and its commitment to fostering diplomatic solutions. Its experiences with internal security issues and regional peacekeeping efforts provide valuable insights into the complexities of national and global stability.

United States

A global leader in security and intelligence, often emphasizing counter-terrorism and strategic partnerships.

Role in topic

The United States frequently engages in diplomatic and security initiatives across Africa, providing support and expertise in counter-terrorism and intelligence sharing. Its perspective would likely focus on international cooperation, capacity building, and the role of global alliances in maintaining stability.

China

An increasingly influential global actor, focusing on economic diplomacy and non-interference in internal affairs, while expanding its security footprint.

Role in topic

China's growing economic and strategic presence in Africa makes its diplomatic and security approaches highly relevant. Its perspective might emphasize development as a pathway to stability, infrastructure investment, and multilateral cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative, while navigating complex security landscapes.

France

A significant European power with historical ties and ongoing security interests in West Africa, particularly in counter-terrorism.

Role in topic

France maintains a strong military and diplomatic presence in several West African nations, actively participating in counter-terrorism operations. Its perspective would likely highlight regional security partnerships, intelligence cooperation, and the challenges of combating extremist groups in the Sahel.

Topics & background

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

Nigeria's 4Ds Foreign Policy Strategy Amidst Global Security Challenges and the Age of Disinformation

Nigeria's foreign policy has historically been anchored in concentric circles prioritizing West Africa, the broader African continent, and then global engagement, with Afrocentrism a defining feature since independence in 1960. Under President Bola Tinubu, Foreign Minister Yusuf Tuggar articulated the '4Ds' doctrine — Democracy, Development, Demography, and Diaspora — as the organizing framework for Nigerian diplomacy. The doctrine is a response to a turbulent regional environment: coups in Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso; the withdrawal of those states from ECOWAS to form the Alliance of Sahel States; the persistence of Boko Haram and ISWAP insurgencies in the Lake Chad Basin; and rising banditry and separatist agitation domestically. The 4Ds also attempt to position Nigeria as a credible interlocutor in a multipolar order where Western, Russian, Chinese, and Gulf influence increasingly compete across Africa. Strategic misperceptions — about Nigeria's intentions during the 2023 ECOWAS standoff with Niger, about its posture toward Russia and the BRICS bloc, and about its internal religious dynamics — have been amplified by coordinated disinformation campaigns, including those traced to Russian-linked networks operating across the Sahel. Diaspora remittances exceeding USD 20 billion annually and Nigeria's demographic weight (projected to exceed 400 million by 2050) underpin the doctrine's economic and soft-power dimensions. Today the challenge is operationalizing the 4Ds when intelligence-sharing across the region has fractured, media ecosystems are saturated with manipulated content, and the line between domestic information disorder and foreign interference has blurred. Abuja is recalibrating its diplomatic, intelligence, and strategic communications instruments to defend national stability while reasserting leadership in a fragmented West African security architecture.

Key players

Information Warfare and FIMI: Strengthening Security, Trade, and Investment Through Collaborative Truth

Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI), a term codified by the European External Action Service in 2022, describes coordinated, often cross-border behavior that threatens values, procedures, and political processes through deceptive or manipulative information. Unlike traditional propaganda, FIMI is tactically agnostic — blending state media, inauthentic social accounts, AI-generated content, and proxy influencers — and increasingly targets economic decision-making, including investor confidence, currency stability, commodity markets, and trade negotiations. High-profile cases include Russian operations Doppelganger and RRN, Chinese Spamouflage networks, and Sahel-focused campaigns that have degraded public trust in Western partners and multilateral institutions. The economic costs are now measurable. Disinformation has been linked to capital flight episodes, sanctions-evasion narratives, and disrupted commodity flows in lithium, grain, and hydrocarbons. The G7 Rapid Response Mechanism, the EU's FIMI Defender Network, NATO StratCom COE, and the UN Global Principles for Information Integrity (2024) reflect a growing recognition that information integrity is a precondition for stable trade and investment, not a separate cultural concern. The debate now centers on how diplomats, intelligence services, and media institutions can collaborate without collapsing the distinction between security work and free expression. 'Collaborative truth' approaches — joint attribution, shared indicators of manipulation, public–private threat exchanges, and pre-bunking — are being tested against concerns about state overreach, platform liability under the EU Digital Services Act, and the asymmetric vulnerabilities of Global South information ecosystems.

Key players

Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI)

FIMI emerged as a policy category to address gaps in earlier disinformation frameworks that focused narrowly on truth or falsity. Introduced formally by the EEAS in its 2022 Threat Report, the concept centers on behavior rather than content: coordinated, deceptive, and manipulative activity by foreign actors that intentionally undermines democratic processes, social cohesion, and decision-making. The DISARM Framework and STIX-based threat-sharing standards have since enabled structured analysis of FIMI incidents across jurisdictions. Major documented campaigns include Russia's Doppelganger operation, which clones legitimate Western media; the GRU-linked Storm-1516 network; China's Spamouflage / Dragonbridge spanning more than 50 platforms; and Iranian operations targeting elections in the United States, Israel, and the Gulf. AI-generated audio and video have lowered the cost of fabrication and complicated attribution. Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia have become priority theaters as great-power competition diversifies. The policy frontier is regulatory and normative: the EU's Digital Services Act and AI Act, the UN Global Principles for Information Integrity, the Christchurch Call, and bilateral attribution mechanisms. Unresolved questions include thresholds for state response, the role of intelligence declassification, protections for journalism and civil society, and how to build resilience in states with limited regulatory capacity without entrenching censorship.

Key players

Global Security in a Multipolar, Contested Era

The post-Cold War security order has given way to overlapping crises: Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine since 2022, the Israel–Hamas war and its regional escalation involving Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iran; civil war in Sudan; instability across the Sahel; tensions in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea; and a nuclear-armed Korean Peninsula. The UN Security Council remains paralyzed on flagship files by P5 divisions, while regional organizations — NATO, the African Union, ECOWAS, ASEAN, and the SCO — are absorbing more of the operational burden. Transnational threats compound state-on-state risks. Cyberattacks on critical infrastructure, weaponization of undersea cables and space assets, climate-driven displacement, pandemic risk, and the militarization of artificial intelligence are reshaping threat assessments. Defense spending reached record levels in 2024 (SIPRI), arms control regimes including New START and the INF Treaty have collapsed or expired, and proliferation pressures have intensified in Northeast Asia and the Middle East. The central debate is how to rebuild predictability — through revived arms control, crisis-communication channels, norms for emerging technologies, and reformed multilateral institutions — when trust among major powers is at a generational low and middle powers are hedging rather than aligning.

Key players

Global Trade: Fragmentation, Friendshoring, and the WTO's Crisis

Global trade is undergoing its most significant reordering since the 1995 founding of the WTO. The Appellate Body has been non-functional since 2019 due to sustained U.S. blocking of appointments, leaving the dispute settlement system in interim mode through MPIA. Successive rounds of U.S.–China tariffs since 2018, sweeping export controls on advanced semiconductors, the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act's domestic-content subsidies, and the EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism have together accelerated a shift from efficiency-driven globalization to security-driven 'derisking,' 'friendshoring,' and industrial policy. The IMF estimates that severe trade fragmentation could cost up to 7 percent of global GDP over the long term, with developing economies disproportionately affected. Red Sea disruptions by Houthi attacks, sanctions regimes around Russia, critical-minerals competition, and food-security shocks from the war in Ukraine have further strained supply chains. Meanwhile, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), RCEP, and CPTPP-related accessions are reshaping regional trade architectures. The core question is whether the rules-based trading system can be reformed — including WTO dispute settlement, treatment of subsidies, and integration of climate and digital trade rules — or whether the world is settling into competing blocs with managed, politically conditioned trade flows.

Key players

Global Investment Flows in an Era of Geoeconomic Risk

Foreign direct investment patterns have shifted sharply since 2020. UNCTAD's World Investment Report 2024 recorded a second consecutive year of decline in global FDI excluding conduit economies, with greenfield investment concentrating along geopolitical lines. Inbound screening regimes have proliferated — the U.S. CFIUS expansion, the EU FDI Screening Regulation, the UK National Security and Investment Act, and similar tools in Japan, Australia, and India — while outbound investment screening, pioneered by the United States in 2023, targets semiconductors, AI, and quantum technologies destined for China. Developing economies face a financing gap of roughly USD 4 trillion annually to meet the Sustainable Development Goals, even as debt distress affects more than half of low-income countries. Climate-aligned investment, critical-minerals financing, and infrastructure initiatives — China's Belt and Road, the G7's Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, the EU's Global Gateway, and India's IMEC corridor — are increasingly intertwined with strategic competition. Sovereign wealth funds from the Gulf and Asia have become decisive marginal investors in Western technology and African infrastructure alike. The debate is how to reconcile legitimate national security screening with the predictability investors require, how to scale blended finance for climate and development, and how to prevent the bifurcation of capital markets along bloc lines.

Key players

Disinformation and the Integrity of Public Discourse

Disinformation — the deliberate creation and spread of false or misleading content — has been amplified by platform economics, algorithmic recommendation, and the rapid commodification of generative AI. The 2016 U.S. election, the Brexit referendum, and the COVID-19 'infodemic' marked turning points in public and policy awareness. Since then, election cycles in more than 70 countries during 2024 have been accompanied by AI-generated deepfakes, coordinated inauthentic behavior, and the erosion of shared factual baselines, even where measurable effects on vote outcomes have varied. Responses have diverged sharply across jurisdictions. The EU's Digital Services Act imposes systemic risk obligations on large platforms and has triggered formal proceedings against X, TikTok, and Meta. The United States relies primarily on platform self-regulation under First Amendment constraints. India, Brazil, Türkiye, and several African states have enacted broader content laws that civil society warns may suppress legitimate speech. UNESCO's Guidelines for the Governance of Digital Platforms (2023) and the UN Global Principles for Information Integrity (2024) attempt to articulate a rights-respecting baseline. The central tensions are between protecting electoral integrity and free expression; between platform accountability and state overreach; and between universal standards and contextually grounded responses in fragile information environments where independent media is already under pressure.

Key players

Diplomacy in a Multipolar and Digitally Contested World

Modern diplomacy operates under pressures unfamiliar to the practitioners who built the post-1945 order. The number of UN member states has more than tripled since 1945, while non-state actors — corporations, philanthropies, transnational networks, and platform companies — increasingly shape outcomes once reserved to states. Summit diplomacy through the G7, G20, BRICS+ (which expanded in 2024 to include the UAE, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Iran), the SCO, and regional bodies competes with and often substitutes for stalled universal forums. The UN Summit of the Future in 2024 produced the Pact for the Future, an attempt to renew multilateral commitments amid declining trust. Diplomats now work in environments shaped by real-time social media, leaks, deepfakes, and FIMI, where private negotiating space is harder to preserve and domestic audiences react instantly to foreign policy moves. Track II and Track 1.5 channels, mediation by middle powers such as Norway, Qatar, Türkiye, and Oman, and the rise of African and Gulf mediators in conflicts from Sudan to Gaza to Ukraine reflect a more distributed mediation landscape. At the same time, expulsions of diplomats, embassy closures, and the weaponization of visas signal a contraction of traditional diplomatic space. The agenda for renewal includes reform of the UN Security Council, strengthening preventive diplomacy, integrating digital and AI considerations into diplomatic practice, and protecting diplomatic norms — including the Vienna Conventions — under strain from sanctions, espionage, and information operations.

Key players

Resources

News, lessons, and country profiles to prep for International Diplomatic and Security Conference (DICAN).

Recent reporting to ground your prep

Trump's Economic Reset

Modi's Tamil Nadu Roadshow

Modi's NIA Strategy in Bengal

Hakeem Jeffries' Strategic Move

Lessons

Bite-sized lessons to build the basics

Engagement Strategies

Dynamic Analysis

The Power-Interest Grid

Hidden Stakeholders

Courses

Guided courses that go deeper on the topic

Multilateral Negotiation

Policy Brief Writing

Media & Press Relations

Stakeholder Mapping

Nigeria April 2026

By committee

Frequently asked questions

International Diplomatic and Security Conference (DICAN)

Apr 27, 2026Abuja, NigeriaIn-person

Registration open

Committees & topics

Topics
Nigeria's 4Ds Foreign Policy Strategy Amidst Global Security Challenges and the Age of Disinformation · Information Warfare and FIMI: Strengthening Security, Trade, and Investment Through Collaborative Truth · Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) · Global Security in a Multipolar, Contested Era · Global Trade: Fragmentation, Friendshoring, and the WTO's Crisis · Global Investment Flows in an Era of Geoeconomic Risk · Disinformation and the Integrity of Public Discourse · Diplomacy in a Multipolar and Digitally Contested World

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

A key player in regional security and diplomacy, advocating for African solutions to African problems while engaging with global partners.

Role in topic

United States

A global leader in security and intelligence, often emphasizing counter-terrorism and strategic partnerships.

Role in topic

China

An increasingly influential global actor, focusing on economic diplomacy and non-interference in internal affairs, while expanding its security footprint.

Role in topic

France

A significant European power with historical ties and ongoing security interests in West Africa, particularly in counter-terrorism.

Role in topic

Topics & background

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

Nigeria's 4Ds Foreign Policy Strategy Amidst Global Security Challenges and the Age of Disinformation

Key players

Information Warfare and FIMI: Strengthening Security, Trade, and Investment Through Collaborative Truth

Key players

Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI)

Key players

Global Security in a Multipolar, Contested Era

Key players

Global Trade: Fragmentation, Friendshoring, and the WTO's Crisis

Key players

Global Investment Flows in an Era of Geoeconomic Risk

Key players

Disinformation and the Integrity of Public Discourse

Key players

Diplomacy in a Multipolar and Digitally Contested World

Key players

Resources

News, lessons, and country profiles to prep for International Diplomatic and Security Conference (DICAN).

Recent reporting to ground your prep

Trump's Economic Reset

Modi's Tamil Nadu Roadshow

Modi's NIA Strategy in Bengal

Hakeem Jeffries' Strategic Move

Lessons

Bite-sized lessons to build the basics

Engagement Strategies

Dynamic Analysis

The Power-Interest Grid

Hidden Stakeholders

Courses

Guided courses that go deeper on the topic

Multilateral Negotiation

Policy Brief Writing

Media & Press Relations

Stakeholder Mapping

Nigeria April 2026

By committee

Committees & topics

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Topics & background

Resources

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NIIA Foreign Policy Lecture Series – Nuclear Weapons: From Instrumentis Belli to Causas Bellorum

Nigeria National Private Security Conference (NPSC) 2026

International Conference on Dialogue, Diplomacy, and Conflict Resolution (ICDDYCR-2026)

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Frequently asked questions

Committees & topics

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Topics & background

Resources

Related conferences

DICAN Summit 2026

NIIA Foreign Policy Lecture Series – Nuclear Weapons: From Instrumentis Belli to Causas Bellorum

Nigeria National Private Security Conference (NPSC) 2026

International Conference on Dialogue, Diplomacy, and Conflict Resolution (ICDDYCR-2026)

African Borderlands Research Network (ABORNE) Annual Meeting 2026

International Conference on Armed Conflict, Civil Wars, and Peace Processes (ICACCWPP-26)

Frequently asked questions