This indicator measures the prevalence of armed conflicts and their impact in terms of loss of life. Together with the indicator 16.1.1 on intentional homicide, they measure violent deaths that occur in all countries of the world (intentional homicides) and in situations of armed conflict (conflict-related deaths).

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development seeks to strengthen universal peace and commits to redouble efforts to resolve or prevent conflict. It recognizes that there can be no sustainable development without peace and no peace without sustainable development. Counting deaths occurring in situations of armed conflict is therefore essential to the measurement of the Agenda, including and beyond its Goal 16. Monitoring conflict-related deaths is also necessary to help protect civilians and other potential victims, ensure respect of humanitarian and human rights standards, and understand the patterns and consequences of armed conflicts in order to prevent future armed conflicts.

Conflict is defined as armed conflict in reference to a terminology enshrined in international humanitarian law and applied to situations based on the assessment of the UN and other internationally mandated entities. Conflict-related deaths refer to direct and indirect deaths associated with armed conflict. These deaths may have been caused by (i) the use of weapons or (ii) other means and methods. Deaths caused by weapons include but are not limited to those inflicted by firearms, missiles, mines and bladed weapons. It may also include deaths resulting from aerial attacks and bombardments (e.g., of military bases, cities and villages), crossfire, explosive remnants of war, targeted killings or assassinations, and force protection incidents. Deaths caused by other means and methods may include deaths from torture or sexual and gender-based violence, intentional killing using starvation, depriving prisoners of access to health care or denying access to essential goods and services (e.g., an ambulance stopped at a checkpoint).

Indirect deaths are deaths resulting from a loss of access to essential goods and services (e.g., economic slowdown, shortages of medicines or reduced farming capacity that result in lack of access to adequate food, water, sanitation, health care and safe conditions of work) that are caused or aggravated by the situation of armed conflict.

By definition, these deaths should be separated from other violent deaths, which are, in principle, not connected to the situation of armed conflict (e.g., intentional and non-intentional homicides, self-defense, self-inflicted), but are still relevant to the implementation and measurement of SDG target 16.1.

Population refers to total resident population in a given situation of armed conflict included in the indicator, in a given year. Population data are derived from annual estimates produced by the UN Population Division.

Discrepancies might exist between national definitions, international statistical and legal standards, coverage and quality of data, according to the mandate, methods and capacity of data providers.

In situations of armed conflict, a large share of deaths may not be reported. Often, normal registration systems are heavily affected by the presence of armed conflict. Additionally, actors on both sides of an armed conflict may have incentives for misreporting, deflating or inflating casualties. In most instances, the number of cases reported will depend on access to conflict zones, access to information, motivation and perseverance of both international and national actors, such as UN peace missions and other internationally mandated entities, national institutions (e.g., national statistical offices, national human rights institutions) and relevant civil society organizations.

Disaggregating data by characteristics of victims and by causes of death is particularly complex and may result in limited data availability for children.

Numerator: The total count of conflict- related deaths.
Denominator: The total population, expressed per 100,000 population.

The recommended disaggregation for this indicator are:
– Sex of person killed (Man, Woman, Unknown)
– Age group of person killed (Adult (18 and above), Child (below 18), Unknown)
– Cause of death (Heavy weapons and explosive munitions; Planted explosives and unexploded
ordnance (UXO); Small arms and light weapons;; Incendiary; Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear (CBRN); Electromagnetic weapons; Less lethal weapons; Denial of access to/destruction of objects indispensable to survival; Accidents related to conflict; Use of objects and other means; Unknown)
– Status of the person killed (Civilian, Other protected person, Member of armed forces, Person directly participating in hostilities, Unknown)

As a starting point, the indicator will only include documented conflict-related direct deaths. If there are
no documented conflict-related direct deaths for a particular situation of armed conflict, no estimate of missing values will be computed. Specific to the nature of this indicator, it is worth noting that depending on the availability and quality of data over the course of the armed conflict, statistical surveys and techniques may be used to estimate undocumented direct conflict-related deaths, adding the statistical estimates to the documented cases.

National datasets with sufficiently well documented direct deaths constitute an essential source for further statistical analysis and estimations of undocumented direct deaths. As indirect deaths would typically fall outside the scope of common casualty recording practices (that rather focus on direct deaths), they may be captured using additional administrative records and/or statistical surveys allowing the measurement of excess mortality, namely all the deaths (direct and indirect) that would not have occurred in time of peace, as defined and measured by epidemiologists.

The methodology for these estimations will be further developed in collaboration with national statistical offices, national human rights institutions, UN entities and civil society organizations.

Same as country level.

Regional aggregates are calculated as the total number of documented direct conflict-related deaths, divided by the total resident population of armed conflict, for the region, expressed in 100, 000 population.
The global aggregate is calculated as the total number of documented direct conflict-related deaths for all the situations of armed conflict, divided by the total resident population of all situations of armed conflict, included in the indicator, expressed in 100, 000 population.

Discrepancies might exist between national definitions, international statistical and legal standards, coverage and quality of data, according to the mandate, methods and capacity of data providers. Capacity building for the implementation of the methodology for this indicator by data providers will improve quality and consistency across data sets.

OHCHR will conduct a validation process of the list of situations of armed conflict to be considered
for the indicator every year. OHCHR will systematically assess each potentially relevant data provider for its application of the methodology for the indicator, including its ability to provide credible and reliable data and apply verification standards. This will be done through metadata exchange, capacity building and continued exchange with data providers.

At the time of drafting the present metadata for the reclassification request to the IAEG-SDG, data documented direct conflict-related deaths of civilians have been collected for most of the deadliest situations of armed conflict in the SDG regions of Southern Asia, Western Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Northern Africa, Latin America and Europe. Not all of these data, however, have been collated for global SDGs indicators reporting purposes.

2015 – 2017

Examples of sources include eyewitnesses; hospital records; community elders, religious and civil leaders; security forces and conflict parties; local authorities; prosecution offices, police and other law enforcement agencies, health authorities; government departments and officials; UN and other international organizations; detailed media reports and other relevant civil society organizations.

Data will be compiled from data providers that have been systematically assessed by OHCHR for their application of the methodology for the indicator, including their ability to provide credible and reliable data and apply the verification standard based on the technical guidance.

The mechanisms, bodies and institutions that have the mandate, capacity and independence to document and investigate alleged killings related to conflict will be prioritized. From this perspective, UN entities working on casualty recording in the framework of their operations (e.g. peacekeeping operations, commissions of inquiry, humanitarian operations and human rights offices), national human rights institutions and national statistical offices will generally be prioritized. OHCHR will conduct capacity- building activities and collaborate, including in validating data, with relevant stakeholders at national, regional and international levels.

In 2019, OHCHR plans to collect data on documented direct conflict-related deaths of civilians for 2015, 2016, 2017

In 2020, OHCHR plans to report data on documented direct conflict-related deaths of civilians for 2015, 2016, 2017

National and international data providers that have been assessed by OHCHR for their application of the indicator’s associated methodology, including UN entities working on casualty recording in the framework of their operations (e.g. peacekeeping operations, commissions of inquiry, humanitarian operations and human rights offices), national human rights institutions, national statistical offices and relevant civil society organizations.

http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Indicators/Pages/HRIndicatorsIndex.aspx

INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE RED CROSS (2009). Typology of Armed Conflicts in International Humanitarian Law: Legal Concepts and Actual Situations. Volume 91 Numbers 873. Available from https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/assets/files/other/irrc-873-vite.pdf.

INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE RED CROSS (2008). How is the Term ‘Armed Conflict’ Defined in International Humanitarian Law? Opinion Paper. Available from https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/resources/documents/article/other/armed-conflict-article-170308.htm

INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE RED CROSS (2015). Report of the 32nd International Conference of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent, International Humanitarian Law and the Challenges of Contemporary Armed Conflicts. Geneva. Available from http://rcrcconference.org/wp- content/uploads/2015/10/32IC-Report-on-IHL-and-challenges-of-armed-conflicts.pdf

INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE RED CROSS (2011). Overview of Weapons Regulated by IHL. Available from https://www.icrc.org/en/document/weapons .
UNITED NATIONS (2015). International Classification of Crime for Statistical Purposes (ICCS), Version 1.0. Vienna. Available from: https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/statistics/iccs.html .
UNITED NATIONS. Guidance on Casualty Recording. Upcoming publication.

WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION (2018). International Classification of Diseases 11th Revision. Available
from https://icd.who.int/ .

UNITED NATIONS (2012). Human Rights Indicators: A Guide to Measurement and Implementation. New York and Geneva. Available from http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Indicators/Pages/HRIndicatorsIndex.aspx .

HUMAN RIGHTS DATA AND ANALYSIS GROUP (2014). Updated Statistical Analysis of Documentation of Killings in the Syrian Arab Republic, Commissioned by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Available from https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/SY/HRDAGUpdatedReportAug2014.pdf .

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development seeks to strengthen universal peace and commits to redouble efforts to resolve or prevent conflict. It recognizes that there can be no sustainable development without peace and no peace without sustainable development. Counting deaths occurring in situations of armed conflict is therefore essential to the measurement of the Agenda, including and beyond its Goal 16.

This indicator measures the prevalence of armed conflicts and their impact in terms of loss of life. Together with the indicator 16.1.1 on intentional homicide, they measure violent deaths that occur in all countries of the world (intentional homicides) and in situations of armed conflict (conflict-related deaths).

Producing reliable estimates of the number and causes of death, particularly among children and adolescents in both conflict and non- conflict settings, is difficult as age disaggregated death registration data in many countries are not systematically collected, accessible, adequately compiled, complete or accurate. Determining cause of death, particularly when victims are very young, can be especially challenging even in countries with advanced and well-functioning health and registration systems. For these reasons, the assessment of trends in child deaths due to violence from official records is limited by the lack of reliable data for most countries.

For indicator 16.1.1, data disaggregated by age are not currently available in the global SDG database and therefore estimates of the number of child victims cannot be produced. This is the rationale for classifying this indicator as no data in the country profiles.

Up until March 2019, indicator 16.1.2 was classified as tier III meaning there was no established methodology for collecting these data. Following the reclassification to tier II, a global SDG database with country values will be developed, but in the meantime, the indicator has been classified in the country profiles as no data.