This issue of ACLED Conflict Trends marks a year since ACLED began publishing monthly updates summarising and analysing real-time data on conflict in the African continent. Past issues of Conflict Trends are available online at acleddata.com where analysis has included regional conflict trends, the highest violence states at present and in historical perspective, and states displaying unique or paradigmatic violence profiles. Special issue topics have included the urbanization of conflict, electoral violence, violent Islamist groups in Sub-Saharan Africa, and profiles of some of the most dominant violent groups including Boko Haram and Al Shabaab.
This issue of Conflict Trends focuses on recent developments in Central African Republic (CAR), Kenya, Mali, Nigeria and South Sudan. The special focus section this month provides a conceptual and methodological overview of ACLED terminology and categorisation of violence, and its relevance to the analysis and understanding of discrete patterns and dynamics of conflict.
Elsewhere on the continent, violence declined in Sudan after a period of relatively elevated conflict there, as in Namibia after a period of unrest. Conflict escalated in Egypt, while levels remained largely unchanged in DR-Congo, Zimbabwe and Somalia.
