African Conflict Baselines and Trends

This document is one of a series of Practice Products developed under the Conflict, Crime, and Violence Results Initiative (CCVRI). The full set of products is intended to support DFID country offices and their partners to develop better measures of programme results in difficult conflict and fragile environments. DFID recognises the need to focus on the results of its work in developing countries. To this end, DFID strives to account better for our efforts on behalf of UK taxpayers, offering clarity regarding the value and impact of our work. The Results Initiative operates under the assumption that we will achieve our development objectives with our national partners more effectively if we generate—collectively—a clear picture of the progress being made. Within DFID, the Conflict Humanitarian and Security Department has established a partnership with a consortium of leading organisations in the fields of conflict, security and justice to develop more effective approaches to the use of data in the design, implementation and evaluation of programmes that contribute to reducing conflict, crime and violence. In addition to producing these Practice Products, the consortium has established a Help Desk function to provide direct and customized support to country offices as they endeavour to improve measurement of results in local contexts. Purpose and intended use of this document: The purpose of this document is to inform policy-making through the provision of a reliable evidence base of disaggregated conflict data and analysis on conflict patterns. This is done through 1) an overview of conflict trends on the African continent, including shifts in the types, agents and levels of conflict over time; 2) an introduction to the concepts of conflict baselines, trend lines and deviations; 3) a detailed analysis of select country case studies for reference; and 4) a series of exercises designed for practitioner use in conflict analysis, based on the ACLED dataset. Key questions this document addresses: What are the new patterns of conflict across African states? How can analysis highlight the spatial and temporal patterns of distinct violence occurring across countries? How does violence affect the 'development project environment'? Key messages/essential " take aways " : Evidence based analysis of conflict across African states is possible with highly disaggregated information. However, violence patterns can only be understood in terms of the context in which it occurs. This report considers the recent patterns and geographies of conflict across Africa and engages with three new realities …