Datasets

The National Violence Monitoring System (Sistem Nasional Pemantauan Kekerasan)

The National Violence Monitoring System (NVMS) project was implemented by the Government of Indonesia’s Coordinating Ministry for People’s Welfare (Kemenkokesra Deputi 1) in partnership with the World Bank and the Habibie Center. Support was also provided by USAID-Serasi project and AusAID. Patrick Barron, Sana Jaffrey and Ashutosh Varshney led the design of the instruments and methodology for data collection.

The NVMS dataset records all incidents of violence in 16 provinces, which represent all major island groups and account for about 53 percent of Indonesia's population, as reported by over 120 local news sources. The selected provinces include the “high-conflict” provinces that were affected by large-scale violence following Indonesia's democratic transition as well as “low-conflict” areas that were not. For the high-conflict provinces—Aceh, Maluku, North Maluku, Central Sulawesi, Central Kalimantan, West Kalimantan, Papua and West Papua—data has been compiled since 1998. For East Java, North Sumatra, Lampung, East Nusa Tenggara, West Nusa Tenggara, South Sulawesi, North Sulawesi and the Greater Jakarta Area (Jabodetabek), classified as relatively low-conflict areas, data has been collected mostly since 2005. By 2012, the NVMS had recorded 30 distinct variables for 163,466 incidents, which collectively resulted in 36,222 deaths, 132,110 injuries, 75, 937 damaged buildings, 4,322 kidnappings and 22,529 sexual assaults. These indicators can be disaggregated at the provincial, district, and sub-district level. As far as we know, the NVMS is the largest dataset of violence created for any single country.

More information about the dataset and the project it supported can be found in this paper: When Large Conflicts Subside: The Ebbs and Flows of Violence in Post-Suharto Indonesia.

The data is available on the World Bank’s micro data website. There is one dataset per year (1997-2014) and they are linked below.