A New Expanded Dataset to Study Refugee Camps in Sub-Saharan Africa 1999–2024

One in five refugees live in camps or camp-like settings, and three-quarters of encamped refugees are in sub-Saharan Africa. No reliable public data have systematically tracked camp locations, operations, or populations over time. To address this, we introduce the African Refugee Camps Dataset (ARCD), a geospatial panel dataset. We first describe how the dataset was constructed, the sources used to build it, and the structure and content of the resulting data. We then use the data to characterize the refugee camps in the region over the 26 years the ARCD covers. We finish by presenting two applications combining the ARCD with complementary data to illustrate its potential for research. First, we assess spatial features of camp locations compared to stratified random sites. Second, we estimate the effect of camp openings on forest and vegetation cover using a differences-in-differences approach.