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Aid Worker Security Database (AWSD) Codebook (Updated January 2025)

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Introduction to the Aid Worker Security Database (AWSD)

The AWSD is a publicly available database that records major incidents of violence against aid workers. It is global in scope, collecting incidents from all countries that have a humanitarian operational presence, and granular in detail, including geographic coordinates as well as the perpetrators involved, the tactics of violence used, and the types of staff and organisations affected. Humanitarian Outcomes partners initiated the database in 2005 and made it available online in 2010, with funding support from the US, Canadian, and Irish governments.

The database includes incidents dating back to 1997, with more comprehensive reports dating from 2000-onwards. This is due to the better availability of data resulting from improved media reporting around aid worker security incidents and more comprehensive security reporting by humanitarian organisations. It is a ‘living’ database, meaning that incidents are updated as new information becomes available, including incidents from past years. The database is organised on the attack (‘incident’) as the primary unit of analysis. Incidents are sourced, coded, and manually entered into the database by human operators who review the incidents to ensure that they meet the parameters for inclusion. When a coder cannot determine whether the incident meets the parameters, the incident is referred to two other members of the database team for review and assessment. Incidents and specific categories of information are periodically reviewed for coding consistency.

The AWSD records incidents of ‘major violence’ against aid workers, the definition of which includes acts with the following outcomes: kidnapping, killing, wounding (i.e. serious injury requiring medical attention), rape and sexual assault.

Aid workers are defined as the employees and associated personnel of not-for-profit aid agencies (both national and international) that provide material and technical assistance in humanitarian relief contexts.

This includes both emergency relief and multi-mandated (relief and development) organisations: NGOs, the International Movement of the Red Cross/Red Crescent, donor agencies and the UN agencies belonging to the Inter-Agency Standing Committee on Humanitarian Affairs (FAO, OCHA, UNDP, UNFPA, UNHCR, UNICEF, UN-Habitat, WFP and WHO) plus IOM, UNRWA, UNMAS and when applicable, the World Bank. The aid worker definition includes various locally contracted staff (e.g., drivers, security guards, etc.), and does not include UN peacekeeping personnel, human rights workers, election monitors or purely political, religious, or advocacy organizations. Contracted workers and vendors of the humanitarian organisations, even though not considered staff, are included if affected by violence in the course of their work supporting the humanitarian mission.

The AWSD does not include information on safety incidents such as road accidents, illness, mine personnel that are hurt or killed as a result of mine clearing operations that result in accidental detonations, health care workers that are not part of or supported by an aid agency or incidents that occur to family members of humanitarian staff.

Incidents affecting staff from private or state-run health care systems are recorded in the AWSD if they are directly or indirectly supported by humanitarian agencies through the provision of financial support that provide for human resources. Private clinic staff whose salaries are paid by an INGO or a World Bank supported national government run Ebola programme are two examples. Incidents meeting these parameters would be included in the AWSD.