Notes on Methodology

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Notes

1 Although the reporting period for the conflicts included in The Armed Conflict Survey 2023 ends on 30 June 2023, we have covered important developments that happened after this date to make the publication as timely as possible. Such developments include the coup d’état in Niger at the end of July 2023 and major events that occurred after the cut-off date in the conflicts in Ethiopia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Sudan and Ukraine. For all other cases, events after the end of June 2023 will be covered in The Armed Conflict Survey 2024.

2 These numerical criteria may be overruled by a qualitative assessment in exceptional cases. For instance, we have decided to include Rwanda this year due to its overt support for the March 23 Movement’s activities in the DRC and the consequent escalation in bilateral tensions, despite the country not fulfilling all the quantitative criteria for inclusion.

3 Unless otherwise stated, all figures related to military strength and capability, defence economics and arms equipment in the Conflict Parties tables are taken from the Military Balance+.

4 To reflect the significant changes in the nature of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Ukraine in recent years, The Armed Conflict Survey 2022 made some adjustments that were retained this year. For Afghanistan, the typology of the conflict was revised to internal (localised insurgency and intercommunal) to take into account a new phase of the conflict (started in 2001), which began in 2021 with the full withdrawal of foreign troops and the Taliban’s takeover. For Ukraine, we changed the name, typology of conflict and starting date to reflect the new reality of the conflict, which evolved from an internationalised-internal confrontation to a fully fledged inter-state conflict with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

5 The normalisation formula is partially adjusted for the presence of outliers under the assumption of a normal distribution in the sample. An observation is treated as an outlier if it is three (3) standard deviations larger than the mean of the sample’s distribution. The formula is as follows: xi > X+ za S, where xi is the observation, X is the mean, za equals three (3) and S is the standard deviation of the sample. As a result, for all ACGRI variables except IDPs, UNSC resolutions, and peacekeeping and other multilateral missions, Ukraine is treated as an outlier and assigned the highest score, together with the country with the second-highest value in the sample.

6 Conflict fatalities include those that result from battles, explosions/remote violence and violence against civilians.

7 Most recent available data for Egypt was from 2020.

8 Violent events include battles, explosions/remote violence and violence against civilians.

9 Our methodology includes the following definition of ‘involvement’ for foreign countries in conflict. For internal conflicts, foreign countries are considered ‘involved’ if they are either present through the deployment of military capabilities (outside of a multilateral mission as defined in the ACGRI) or if they meet all the following criteria: presence of intelligence assets; provision of military financial support; role in an advisory or operational command-and-control capacity; and sale or transfer of military equipment. For inter-state conflicts, foreign countries are considered ‘involved’ if they are either present through the deployment of military capabilities (outside of a multilateral mission as defined in the ACGRI) or if they meet two or more of the following criteria: presence of intelligence assets; provision of military financial support; role in an advisory or operational command-and-control capacity; and sale or transfer of military equipment.

10 Military aid to Ukraine only refers to aid worth more than US$1 billion in funding provided by over 30 countries between 24 January 2022 and 24 February 2023.

11 This is calculated based on the number of military personnel deployed into conflict-affected countries by major geopolitical powers within the G20 (including unilaterally, as part of a combat coalition or as part of a mission under the aegis of an international organisation organisation, but excluding deployments that are not conflict related).

12 These include missions undertaken by the UN, regional organisations or ad hoc groups related to UN sanctions/UNSC resolutions or endorsed by the UN and other international organisations. Data refers to active missions as of 30 June 2023 that fulfil the following two criteria: objective (relating to multidimensional peace and conflict resolution) and geographical scope (relating to the analysed conflicts in the countries under review).

13 SIPRI, ‘SIPRI Map of Multilateral Peace Operations, 2023’, May 2023.

14 UN, ‘UN Special Political Missions and Other Political Presences 2023’, July 2023.

15 This includes financial funding received by local governments, multilateral organisations, non-governmental organisations, pooled funds, private organisations, and Red Cross and Red Crescent organisations operating in the country under review. The data was retrieved from FTS on 26 July 2023. Figures are continuously updated, and later reports may differ from the data retrieved on the above date. FTS is a voluntary reporting mechanism in which the donor declares the value of the funding to FTS, which then oversees its curation, validation and processing in a centralised manner.