What the database records, how each entry was coded, how confident we are in it, and how the releases have evolved. Variable definitions are given in English, the language of the coding sheet.
| Version | Date | Coverage | What changed |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.6 | 26 September 2026 | 34 datasets · 14,848 entries · 2 regions | Leader-name standardisation: eight leaders recorded under two spellings are merged to one canonical spelling each (29 cells in the master; e.g. Kumba Yalá → Kumba Iala, Hannah Tetteh → Hanna Tetteh), so the published data now counts 578 distinct leaders. No other values change. Codebook v5.2. The website adds an Insights page, a Releases page and, for registered users, a Leaders section: a profile page for every leader, a leader comparison view and CSV / Excel downloads of each leader's records. |
| 1.5 | 22 September 2026 | 34 datasets · 14,848 entries · 2 regions | Reconciliation of the team-coded West Africa cleaned master (413 new records, 588 enrichments and corrections to existing ones) and the West Africa COLT completeness closure. The published site is refocused on the two systematically coded regions — Eastern and Western Africa, 34 states; the master workbook retains the other regions outside the published scope. Codebook v5.1. |
| 1.4 | 4 September 2026 | 46 datasets · 19,293 entries · 5 regions | Continental consolidation: the Northern, Southern and Central Africa modules join the file, every state is now systematically coded, and the whole dataset is cross-verified against the COLT corpus. The file grows from 4,382 to 19,293 entries; all 46 states gain a full country profile; codebook v5.0. |
| 1.3 | 2 September 2026 | 46 datasets · 4,382 entries · 5 regions | Same rows as 1.2. The machine-readable codebook is republished without coder identities; the website gained the Data & Methods page, the accessibility statement, embeddable cards and charts, and a Zenodo DOI in every citation. |
| 1.2 | 24 August 2026 | 46 datasets · 4,382 entries · 5 regions | Dataset-wide normalisation of labels, names and venues; semantic vetting passes closed; ten incidentally coded groups added as map-only datasets. |
| 1.1 | 17 August 2026 | 36 datasets · 4,361 entries · 5 regions | Second team-form import: 677 submitted rows, 495 accepted after de-duplication and re-orientation of inbound entries. |
| 1.0 | 22 June 2026 | — | First public release of the database and the interactive map. |
Each row is one international engagement — an in-person visit, a phone call or a video conference — by a head of state, head of government or foreign minister of an African country, between 1990 and 2025. An engagement is described by 59 variables in eight blocks: identification of the actor, the event itself, delegation and counterparts, activities on the margins, the substance of discussions, agreements signed, the lifecycle of those agreements, and assessment, sourcing and provenance.
The interactive map, the country profiles and the downloadable data.json carry every field except four: the coders' free-text notes, the coder's identity, the evidential confidence rating and the source URLs. Those travel with the full dataset, which registered users obtain from the Archive; they are withheld from the public copy to protect coders and to keep source links from being scraped out of context.
As the fifth and final stage of the coding workflow, our findings are cross-checked against the independent Country and Organization Leader Travel (COLT) dataset of the Frederick S. Pardee Institute for International Futures (University of Denver): overlapping records are compared trip by trip, every discrepancy is re-examined against the original sources, and confirmed corrections are folded back into the database before release.
Moyer, Jonathan D., Collin J. Meisel, Austin S. Matthews, Whitney Doran, Andrew Scott, Marianne Hughes, Anjali T. Martin, Alexandra Kurkul, and Kylie McKee. 2024. “Country and Organization Leader Travel (COLT) Codebook.” Version 2.6. Frederick S. Pardee Institute for International Futures, Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver, Denver, CO.
A five-level ordinal scale grading the evidential basis of a record. The current release uses only the two highest levels — Explicit (10,041 records) and Implied (4,807) in the v5.2 profile; the lower three are defined for completeness and are not used.
| Level | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Explicit | The fact is directly and unambiguously stated in a source. |
| Implied | Strongly supported by, but not literally stated in, the source(s). |
| Assumed | Inferred from context / standard practice without direct evidence. |
| Guessed | Low-evidence best estimate. |
| Dubious | Recorded but of doubtful reliability; flagged for review. |
The 22 categories observed, with the number of records in which each appears in the v5.2 profile (a record may carry several).
| Category | Records |
|---|---|
| Diplomacy and Foreign Relations | 14,274 |
| Regional Organizations and Multilateral Affairs | 7,342 |
| Trade and Economic Relations | 2,765 |
| Security and Defense | 652 |
| Development and Aid | 513 |
| International Conflicts and Crises | 398 |
| Peace and Security | 134 |
| Peace Negotiations and Mediation | 129 |
| Symbolic and Ceremonial Issues | 122 |
| Environment and Climate Change | 115 |
| Financial and Monetary Issues | 95 |
| Infrastructure and Connectivity | 93 |
| Energy | 86 |
| Terrorism and Counterterrorism | 59 |
| Human Rights and Governance | 56 |
| Education and Culture | 55 |
| Health | 54 |
| Agriculture and Food Security | 43 |
| Maritime and Territorial Issues | 30 |
| Domestic Political Matters | 20 |
| Migration and Human Mobility | 17 |
| Science, Technology and Innovation | 15 |
Signed agreements are classified into four families, each with its own type field. The type vocabularies are data-derived and grow with the file.
All 59 variables in worksheet order, grouped in eight blocks. The Q-number is the questionnaire number in the column header; the short name is the machine-readable field name. Coverage and value counts are from the v5.2 profile of 14,848 records.
Macro-region of Africa under which the home actor is classified. The published database covers the two systematically coded regions: Eastern Africa (nineteen states, Somaliland included) and Western Africa (the full fifteen-member ECOWAS belt) — thirty-four home states in total.
Sovereign state (or de facto state) the travelling / engaging leader represents (the sending actor). Thirty-four home actors across the two regions, all systematically coded.
Official office held by the home actor at the time of the engagement. Free office label drawn from an open list; 31 distinct values clustering on heads of state/government and senior ministers.
Note: All 31 distinct office labels are listed; the tail comprises single- to triple-count ministerial and military-chief titles.
Personal name of the home actor. High-cardinality identifier (578 distinct individuals across the period).
Values: 578 distinct. Most frequent: Paul Kagame (543), Yoweri Kaguta Museveni (541), Robert Mugabe (490), Abdoulaye Wade (337), Macky Sall (336), Olusegun Obasanjo (324), Faure Gnassingbé (320), Alassane Ouattara (274), Blaise Compaoré (267), Thomas Boni Yayi (262), Umaro Sissoco Embaló (256), Nana Akufo-Addo (224).
Modality of the engagement: an in-person trip, a telephone call, or a video conference.
Counterpart / host country of the engagement (destination of a visit, or the country of the interlocutor for a call or video conference).
Values: 157 distinct. Most frequent: United States of America (1,574), France (740), Nigeria (678), Ethiopia (673), South Africa (497), Tanzania (407), Kenya (394), United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (358), Ghana (352), Côte d'Ivoire (352), Senegal (335), Libya (334).
Note: Country labels use long-form controlled values (e.g. “Russian Federation”, “Türkiye”, “United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”).
City in which the engagement took place (for calls, typically the interlocutor’s seat).
Values: 397 distinct. Most frequent: New York (1,182), Paris (669), Addis Ababa (667), Abuja (647), Nairobi (389), Washington (378), Accra (351), Abidjan (344), Dar es Salaam (340), Dakar (335), London (319), Beijing (304).
First day of the engagement. Stored as text in US MM/DD/YYYY order.
Values: Range 01/01/1990 → 12/30/2025. All 14,848 values parse as valid dates.
Last day of the engagement (equal to the start date for single-day events).
Values: Range 01/01/1990 → 12/30/2025. All 14,848 values parse as valid dates.
Whether another head of government/state from the home country travelled together with the actor (joint travel).
Whether the actor met the host country’s head of government/state.
Name (with title) of the host head of government/state met. Conditional on Q11 = Yes (skip otherwise).
Values: 831 distinct, e.g. Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution Muammar al-Qaddafi (168), President Emmanuel Macron (130), President Yoweri Museveni (107), President Omar al-Bashir (99), President Jacques Chirac (83), President Paul Kagame (83).
Whether the actor met a sub-head-of-government counterpart of the host (e.g. a foreign or other senior minister) rather than the HoG/S.
Name (with title) of the host-country sub-HoG/S counterpart met. Conditional on Q13 = Yes.
Values: 249 distinct, e.g. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (16), Foreign Minister Wang Yi (13), Premier Li Keqiang (11), Prime Minister Narendra Modi (9), Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan (8).
Whether the engagement included attendance at a multilateral (heads-level) summit or event.
Name of the multilateral summit/event attended. Conditional on Q15 = Yes.
Values: 2,329 distinct, e.g. African Union (AU) Summit (642), Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Summit (599), Southern African Development Community (SADC) Summit (182), Organization of African Unity (OAU) Summit (122), Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) Summit (97).
Whether the engagement included a multilateral event at ministerial (sub-heads) level.
Name of the ministerial multilateral event. Conditional on Q17 = Yes.
Values: 102 distinct, e.g. Foreign Minister Wang Yi (6), Trilateral Talks on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) Ethiopia–Sudan–Egypt Foreign Ministers’ Meeting (4), Ethiopia–Egypt–Sudan GERD Negotiations (3), A joint ministerial commission (2).
Whether the actor met a head of government/state of a third country (not the host), typically on the sidelines of a multilateral event.
Name(s) of third-country HoG/S met. Multiple names may be listed in one cell. Conditional on Q19 = Yes.
Values: 665 distinct, e.g. President Omar al-Bashir (45), President Paul Kagame (31), President Yoweri Museveni (21), President Daniel arap Moi (12).
Whether the actor delivered a public address / speech during the engagement.
Whether the engagement included a visit to, or address at, a cultural, historical or religious site or event.
Whether the actor met business / private-sector leaders.
Whether the actor met the head of an international organisation.
Name (with title/organisation) of the international-organisation leader met. Conditional on Q24 = Yes.
Values: 184 distinct, e.g. United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (51), United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Kofi Annan (47), European Council President Charles Michel (32), United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres (29).
One or more thematic categories describing what was discussed. Stored as a comma-separated list drawn from a controlled vocabulary of 22 categories (full list and frequencies in §6.1).
Values: 539 distinct combinations of the 22 base categories. Most frequent single category: Diplomacy and Foreign Relations (present in 14,274 records).
Master gate: whether any agreement was signed during the engagement. Opens the four agreement-family blocks (Q28–Q42).
Whether a high-level political (treaty-level) instrument was signed — peace, alliance and boundary treaties, community accession/establishment treaties and founding conventions, and formal diplomatic-relations instruments.
Sub-type of the high-level political instrument. Conditional on Q28 = Yes. The type vocabulary is data-derived and richer than the original three treaty types.
Official / descriptive title of the high-level political instrument (e.g. “Algiers Agreement (Eritrea–Ethiopia)”, “Pretoria Agreement”, “R-ARCSS”). Conditional on Q28 = Yes.
Free-text notes on the high-level political instrument (scope, signing context, dates).
Whether an economics-related agreement was signed.
Sub-type of the economics agreement. Conditional on Q32 = Yes.
Title of the economics agreement (e.g. BITs, lines of credit, LAPSSET Corridor agreements, TFTA). Conditional on Q32 = Yes.
Free-text notes on the economics agreement (value, parties, verification source).
Whether a functional-cooperation agreement was signed.
Sub-type of the functional-cooperation agreement. Conditional on Q36 = Yes.
Title of the functional-cooperation agreement. Conditional on Q36 = Yes.
Free-text notes on the functional-cooperation agreement.
Whether a technical/administrative agreement was signed.
Sub-type of the technical/administrative agreement. Conditional on Q40 = Yes.
Title of the technical/administrative agreement. Conditional on Q40 = Yes.
Free-text notes on the technical/administrative agreement.
Whether a signed agreement remains provisional (not yet entered into force). “N/A” marks records with no agreement.
Signature date of a provisional agreement (MM/DD/YYYY). Sparsely populated.
Whether the agreement has been ratified. “N/A” marks records with no agreement.
Ratification date (MM/DD/YYYY). Conditional on Q46 = Yes; sparsely populated.
Whether the agreement has been terminated. “N/A” marks records with no agreement.
Termination date (MM/DD/YYYY). One value present.
Coder’s ordinal assessment of the strategic significance of the engagement.
Primary source URL documenting the engagement. Always populated.
Values: 12,693 distinct URLs. Most-cited domains: advance-lexis-com.du.idm.oclc.org (1,807), www.gettyimages.com (1,554), search-proquest-com.du.idm.oclc.org (1,385), en.wikipedia.org (702), www.facebook.com (581), du.idm.oclc.org (481), advance.lexis.com (477), digitallibrary.un.org (463), wnc.eastview.com (429).
Second corroborating source URL (optional).
Third corroborating source URL (optional).
Fourth corroborating source URL (optional).
Fifth corroborating source URL (optional).
Field reserved for an attached/archived source document (file type).
Note: Populated in 366 of 14,848 records.
Coder’s confidence in the record, on a five-level evidential scale (see §6.3). In this release only the two highest levels are used.
Note: The scale defines five levels (Explicit → Dubious); the current release contains only Explicit and Implied — the lower three are defined but unused.
Name of the coder who entered the record (provenance / inter-coder tracking).
Note: Coder identities are withheld from the public codebook; the field travels only with the full (gated) dataset.
Free-text narrative summary of the engagement (one paragraph per record). Always populated and near-unique to each record; functions as the human-readable description of the row.
Values: 14,832 distinct narratives across 14,848 records.
Each leader carries one canonical spelling. A whole-file review found eight leaders recorded under two spellings (for example Kumba Yalá and Kumba Iala, Hannah and Hanna Tetteh); release 1.6 merges them to the spelling most records already used, unless that spelling was incomplete or wrong. The list of variants is kept with the dataset and applied automatically to every later import, so the duplicates cannot return. Names of counterparts met (free-text fields) are left as recorded.
Every leader has a profile page built from the dataset: all recorded engagements, destinations, topics and signed agreements. The short biography and portrait on each profile (and in the Map's biography balloon) are resolved once, when the site is built, from Wikipedia and Wikidata:
The Leaders section — the profiles, the Leaders index, Compare leaders and the leader downloads — is available to registered users who sign in and enter the Leaders access code provided by the Africa Foundation. The Map, the country profiles, Regions and Insights remain open to everyone.
Every figure on the Insights page is computed from the published dataset each time the site is built, including the words describing a trend (rose, fell, stayed close to). The counting unit is one destination of one engagement, as on the Map; partner groups (Africa, Europe, the Gulf states and others) are defined on that page.
The public dataset is archived on Zenodo: download release 1.6 (data, machine-readable codebook and licence in one bundle), or use the all-versions DOI, which always resolves to the newest release. The full row-level dataset with sources remains available to registered users in the Archive. Registered users can also download every leader's records as CSV or Excel with the same public columns; the Releases page lists every version.
This page is generated from codebook v5.2, itself produced by automated column-by-column profiling of the published Eastern and Western Africa dataset in the source workbook (SHA-256 c210045d…). The codebook is re-issued whenever the source file changes; the live database currently holds 14,848 entries.
The database is licensed CC BY 4.0. Cite it with the reference on the About page; work that uses it is listed under Outputs.