Burundi — July 2015 Update

The political crisis in Burundi is entering its 14th week and though aggregate levels of political violence have decreased since May when mass rioting and protests took hold of the capital, the forms of political violence employed by the varying sides of the political divide have become more lethal (see Figure 1).…

Tunisia — July 2015 Update

While a new series of violent events targeted civilians and security forces in June, Tunisia witnessed a sustained increase in political violence (see Figure 1). Not only is the number of conflict events rising, reported fatalities were also at their highest since January 2011.…

Sudan — July 2015 Update

A campaign of violence has been escalating in Sudanese universities in recent weeks, and over 200 students from Darfur have been assaulted, beaten, or detained over the last six months. On April 29th, 150 student members of the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) attacked members of the Darfur Students Association (DSA) at Sharq El Nil College in Khartoum (Sudan Tribune, May 12, 2015).…

Mali — July 2015 Update

Mali’s current outlook can be termed as cautiously optimistic, although significant challenges remain following the signing of a peace treaty between the Government of Mali and representatives of the Tuareg-led rebels from the Coordination of Movements of Azawad (CMA) on June 20 (Al Jazeera, June 21, 2015).…

Reporting Lags and the Timeliness of Realtime Data

ACLED collects disaggregated data of every event of political violence in Africa, henceforth expanding to Asia (Raleigh et al., 2010). A particularity of ACLED’s work is the publication of data on a real-time, weekly basis.…

State Fragility and Conflict in Africa

The Fragile States Index (FSI), produced by The Fund for Peace, highlights pressures faced by states, identifying “when those pressures are pushing a state towards the brink of failure”, with the intent of shaping assessments of political risk by researchers and policymakers (Messner et al.,…

Homosexuality and Discrimination in Africa

While many celebrate the US Supreme Court ruling late last week to legalize same-sex marriage across the US as a victory for the gay-rights movement and equality (NYTimes, 26, June 2015), gay and lesbian people across many countries in Africa continue to experience discrimination and attacks as a result of their sexual orientation, a trend which has been increasing in recent years.…