About CrisisWatch

CrisisWatch is a vital tool for anyone trying to stay abreast of and understand the world’s shifting conflict landscape. Updated at the beginning of every month, it provides succinct summaries of political and security developments in the past calendar month in over 70 conflicts, crises and vulnerable countries.

Assessing the past month, we allocate each entry one of three arrows:

Looking forward to the month ahead, we may also allocate an entry one or both of the following alerts:

In addition to the individual entries, the Global Overview succinctly explains the month’s arrows and alerts. The interactive map helps users navigate quickly to the conflict situations they follow, and the searchable database offers access to all entries dating back to September 2003 – a unique source of information on the world’s conflicts and crises. You can use all elements of the CrisisWatch tool on your desktop, tablet or smartphone.

The CrisisWatch Digests on Ethiopia, Lebanon and Somalia offer a monthly one-page snapshot of conflict-related country trends in a clear, accessible format, using a map of the region to pinpoint developments. It offers a short explanation of why we think specific trends are worth watching, and it breaks down our analysis into thematic components in order to provide more granular insight into how we are making our qualitative assessments. The “What to Watch” section facilitates horizon-scanning on the country’s security and political developments and helps identify future conflict trends.

CrisisWatch is widely used by staff in governments, multilateral organisations, NGOs and in the private sector, as well as journalists and academics, seeking up-to-date information on the world’s crises and conflicts; month-to-month assessments of which situations are deteriorating and improving; and opportunities for early warning and early action.

Subscribe to receive monthly e-mail alerts as soon as CrisisWatch is updated.

Download our CrisisWatch flyer.

Behind the scenes

CrisisWatch is produced by a team of researchers in Brussels based on information and analysis from our staff in the field, who also carefully review their respective entries. In addition to the 70+ conflicts, crises and vulnerable countries we report on regularly, we monitor over 50 additional situations and publish entries on them if the month’s developments indicate a drift towards violence or instability.

For more information, please write to research@crisisgroup.org.