As ECOWAS prepares for a military intervention, a conflict between Niger and Nigeria could threaten the deep social and economic ties developed on both sides of the border. Hausaland divided ‘The people of Niger Republic are one and the same with those living in Northern Nigeria’, wrote former Kaduna State Governor Nasiru Ahmed El-Rufai recently. […]
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In a new paper published in The Professional Geographer this week, we model the geography of the 9/11 network members’ many travels from the moment the hijackers first boarded a plane to the United States until they killed 2,977 people on 11 September 2001. Building on publicly available sources, and for the first time in […]
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Livestock trade is an important economic activity in West Africa, a region where approximately half of the population owns livestock. Long distance and cross-border travel is often involved in both the production and trade of livestock, particularly cattle and small ruminants. As discussed at the American Association of Geographers (AAG) Annual Meeting in Denver in […]
Conflicts in the Sahel region are intensifying, causing adverse effects on local communities. To better understand the localized impacts of violence, we analyzed primary survey data collected from three regions in Mali in collaboration with the NGO Voice 4 Thought alongside conflict data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED). In general, […]
Read more "Assessing vulnerability to political violence in Mali"
Road improvement projects have led to improving accessibility in Ghana in the last decade. Yet, we show in a new paper published this week in African Geographical Review with Dr. Paul Nugent and Ms. Susanna Goewey that accessibility gains remain very unevenly distributed across the country. As Ghana becomes increasingly urbanized, regional disparities tend to […]
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Armed groups in northwest Africa have “gone rural” in the past few years, according to a new OECD report released this week based on our work in northwest Africa. Using disaggregated data from ACLED, WorldPop and Africapolis, the report examines whether violence display an urban character, how urban and rural violence have changed over time, […]
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Association for Borderlands Studies (ABS) 3rd World Conference, 13-18 February 2023, Ben-Gurion University, Eilat Campus, Israel Session Borders, Cities and Conflicts Organizers Olivier J. Walther, University of Florida; Steven M. Radil, U.S. Air Force Academy Session description Cities and borders have long been synonymous with warfare, insurgency, and the many other forms of politically motivated […]
Conflicts in North and West Africa are increasingly transnational, making borders, borderlands, and border communities ever more important for the stability of the state. Building on a disaggregated analysis of more than 171 000 violent events collected by ACLED, our Lab examined the increasing importance of border regions in the development of armed conflicts in the […]
On November 4th, 2021, the University of Florida Board of Trustees signed a memorandum of understanding with the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) to encourage research on conflict and political violence. Signed on behalf of the University of Florida African Networks Lab, the new agreement will facilitate access to conflict data and […]
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While the location of violent events and their propensity to cluster together in space is increasingly well known, a deeper exploration of their spatiality and spatial evolution over time remains an emerging frontier in conflict studies. To fill this gap, we introduce a new Spatial Conflict Dynamics indicator (SCDi) that measures both the intensity and […]
Read more "Introducing a new spatial indicator of political violence"