The Armed Conflict Location & Event Dataset (ACLED) and the Social Conflict in Africa Database (SCAD) teams recently released new versions of their datasets. In January, the ACLED team released Version 4 of its dataset, which covers political violence in Africa from January 1997 – February 2014, while the SCAD team released a version of its dataset covering African conflicts through December 2012.

The Armed Conflict Location & Event Dataset (ACLED) is the most comprehensive public collection of political violence data for developing states. In addition to adding the latest monthly installment of new data from December 2013, Version 4 of the ACLED dataset contains additions and corrections from targeted quality review in ACLED’s latest annual update of historical data. The collection of data contains information on the specific dates and locations of political violence, the types of events, the groups involved, fatalities suffered as well as changes in territorial control. For more information, visit the ACLED dataset here.

The Social Conflict in Africa Database (SCAD) includes georeferenced data on protests, riots, strikes, coups, communal violence, and other types of social unrest in Africa from 1990 to 2012. The dataset includes all countries in Africa with a population of over one million and each record includes start and end dates, type of event, actors and targets involved, number of participants, number of fatalities, use of government repression, event locations, and issues of contention. For more information, visit the SCAD dataset page here.