This is the M&E Thursday Talk from Thursday, April 18th , when ACLED’s Research Director, Dr. Roudabeh Kishi, and Program Director, Olivia Russell, led the discussion on “Using Real-time Conflict Data for DM&E.”
The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) collects real time data on political violence and protest events across Africa, South/Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. ACLED collects the dates, actors, types of violence, locations, and fatalities associated with these events. All of this data is publicly available for use, and journalists, academics, practitioners, and governments regularly use it to inform decision-making, programming, and policy.
Olivia and Roudabeh introduced ACLED’s coverage and methodology of data collection, as well as outline possible applications of ACLED data to research on conflict, design, monitoring, evaluation and learning. They also highlighted how to access and download the data, understand the variables and the basic structure of the data, avoid potential pitfalls of analysis, and ultimately to successfully employ real-time conflict data for DM&E
Following the presentation, participants took part in a highly active Q&A where topics, such as new media and the potential, wider application of real-time conflict data, were discussed.