Uganda: Survey of War Affected Youth

SWAY was a research program in northern Uganda dedicated to understanding the causes and consequences of civil war violence and child soldiering.

Overview

Specifically, SWAY studied:

• The long-term, individual-level economic, psychological, and political impacts of exposure to war violence and conscription
• The scale, nature and causes of child soldiering and forced recruitment
• The design and evaluation of programs to recover, reintegrate, and develop after conflict

To do so, SWAY tracked and surveyed a representative sample of more than 1,300 young men and women at the end of of northern Uganda’s 20-year war.

SWAY’s principal researchers are Jeannie Annan, Chris Blattman, Khristopher Carlson, and Dyan Mazurana. SWAY concluded in 2008. The research continues in several programs and evaluations, including:

• A randomized evaluation of the effects of cash transfers and enterprise development support for the most vulnerable women affected by the war and displacement: the Women’s Income Generating Support (WINGS) program evaluation
• A randomized evaluation of a Government of Uganda cash transfer program designed to promote skilled trades and development (NUSAF YOP)

SWAY Data

This zip file contains:

• A “codebook” with a description of the study design and implementation and variables of interest
• Survey instruments in text files
• Raw survey data (anonymized) in Stata form
• Academic paper replication files in Stata form
• All other files used to construct datasets for the academic analysis

Please cite one of the academic publications below for these data.

Academic Publications

Several book and journal articles based on SWAY have been published or are in press, including:

• The Logic of Child Soldiering and Coercion (2013), with Bernd Beber, International Organization
• Civil War, Gender and Reintegration in northern Uganda (2011), with Jeannie Annan, Dyan Mazurana, and Khristopher Carlson, Journal of Conflict Resolution
• The Consequences of Child Soldiering (2010), with Jeannie Annan, The Review of Economics and Statistics
• Civil War (2010), with Edward Miguel, The Journal of Economic Literature
• From Violence to Voting: War and Political Participation in Uganda (2009), The American Political Science Review
• On the Nature and Causes of LRA abduction: What the Abductees Say (2010), with Jeannie Annan, The Lord’s Resistance Army: War, Peace and Reconciliation in Northern Uganda (Allen & Vlassenroot, eds.)
• Child Combatants in Northern Uganda: Reintegration Myths and Realities (2008), with Jeannie Annan, Security and Post-Conflict Reconstruction: Dealing with Fighters in the Aftermath of War (Robert Muggah, ed.)

Policy Reports

Research Briefs

SWAY’s early findings were summarized is a series of short research and policy briefs:

• A Way Forward for Assisting Women and Girls in Northern Uganda (2008)
• Making reintegration work for youth in northern Uganda (2007)
• The psychosocial reslience of war-affected men (2006)
• Young men’s abduction and return experiences (2005)

Full Reports

Two full-length reports provide the most thorough coverage of SWAY results.

SWAY I: The State of Youth in northern Uganda (2007)

SWAY II: The State of Female Youth in Northern Uganda (2008)

Supporters

SWAY was primarily supported by AVSI Uganda and UNICEF Uganda.

Other donors include the MacArthur Foundation, the UC Berkeley Human Rights Center, the Russell Sage Foundation, the UC Berkeley Center for African Studies, the IPRA Foundation, the UC Berkeley IBER, and Indiana University’s HPER.