Project Monitoring Report: Western Sahara War Archives - A Monitoring Database for the II War in Western Sahara

Project Monitoring Report Western Sahara War Archives - A Monitoring Database for the II War in Western Sahara Jorge F. Teixeira* ** *** * CEAUP Researcher ** Team LeaderStatistics Team *** Project Operational Coordinator pg. 2 PROJECT MONITORING REPORT: WESTERN SAHARA WAR ARCHIVES – A MONITORING DATABASE FOR THE II WAR IN WESTERN SAHARA pg. 3 PROJECT MONITORING REPORT: WESTERN SAHARA WAR ARCHIVES – A MONITORING DATABASE FOR THE II WAR IN WESTERN SAHARA Abstract The Western Sahara War Archives (WSWA) project is a website, developed by the Center for African Studies of the University of Porto (CEAUP), design to accompany the II Western Sahara War. This report aims to assess the performance of the project at the end of its first 12 (twelve) months of activity, through the statistical analysis of a set of parameters. Therefore, the information collected, will be presented and discussed over 9 points: its context (1), its creation (2), the operations protocol (3), the work teams (4), the difficulties encountered (5), project objectives (6), evaluation metrics and their results (7), future actions (8) and its conclusions. pg. 4 PROJECT MONITORING REPORT: WESTERN SAHARA WAR ARCHIVES – A MONITORING DATABASE FOR THE II WAR IN WESTERN SAHARA Table of Contents Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................................................ 6 Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 7 1. Project Context ................................................................................................................................... 10 2. Project Creation .................................................................................................................................. 11 a) Conceptualization of the Idea ....................................................................................................... 11 b) Implementation of the Idea .......................................................................................................... 12 3. Operation Protocol ............................................................................................................................. 15 a) Documents .................................................................................................................................... 16 b) News .............................................................................................................................................. 16 c) Military Resources ......................................................................................................................... 17 d) Social Media .................................................................................................................................. 17 4. Research Teams .................................................................................................................................. 18 4.1. Work Methodology ................................................................................................................... 18 a) News Team................................................................................................................................ 18 b) Statistics Team .......................................................................................................................... 21 c) Twitter Team ............................................................................................................................. 26 4.2. Composition .............................................................................................................................. 26 4.3. Results ....................................................................................................................................... 28 5. Difficulties ........................................................................................................................................... 29 6. Project Objectives ............................................................................................................................... 29 7. Evaluation ........................................................................................................................................... 30 8. Future Actions ..................................................................................................................................... 37 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................................. 38 Matrix 1-Main Difficulties ................................................................................................................... 29 Graphic 1Total of Publications in the WSWA Site (%) ...................................................................... 28 Table 1Team’s Composition’s ........................................................................................................... 27 Table 2-- Publications per Team ......................................................................................................... 28 Table 3Project Evaluation Metrics Meanings ................................................................................... 30 Table 4Project Evaluation Metrics Results ....................................................................................... 31 Figure 1WSWA Logo ......................................................................................................................... 12 Figure 2General Appearance of the Site .......................................................................................... 13 Figure 3News Menu ......................................................................................................................... 14 Figure 4Documents Menu ................................................................................................................ 14 Figure 5War Data Menu ................................................................................................................... 15 Figure 6Overall Collection Process Schematics ................................................................................ 15 Figure 7Documents Collection Process Schematics ......................................................................... 16 Figure 8-News Collection Process Schematics.................................................................................... 16 Figure 9-Military Information Collection Process Schematics ............................................................ 17 Figure 10-Social Media Collection Process Schematics ...................................................................... 17 Figure 11Project Objectives.............................................................................................................. 29 Figure 12Total clicks compared to Total traffic in the last 12 months ............................................. 32 Figure 13Average CTR compared to Average Position ..................................................................... 32 Figure 14Date with the most clicks .................................................................................................. 33 Figure 15Date with the most Prints.................................................................................................. 33 Figure 16Country with the most Clicks ............................................................................................. 34 pg. 5 PROJECT MONITORING REPORT: WESTERN SAHARA WAR ARCHIVES – A MONITORING DATABASE FOR THE II WAR IN WESTERN SAHARA Figure 17Country with most Prints................................................................................................... 34 Figure 18Page with the most clicks .................................................................................................. 35 Figure 19Top linking pages, last 12 months ..................................................................................... 35 Figure 20 – Most used devices ........................................................................................................... 35 Figure 21Top linking sites in the last 12 months .............................................................................. 35 Figure 22Total external links counted for in the last 12 months...................................................... 35 Figure 23Top link text, last 12 months ............................................................................................. 36 pg. 6 PROJECT MONITORING REPORT: WESTERN SAHARA WAR ARCHIVES – A MONITORING DATABASE FOR THE II WAR IN WESTERN SAHARA Acknowledgments The following report would not be possible, if not for the efforts of all the members of WSWA Project, from researchers to the students. My deepest gratitude for all the work developed by them. I would also like to, personally thank Professor Maciel Santos, for all the help, advice and all the hours that we have lost around the technical questions of the Project, without him, this work would not be possible. pg. 7 PROJECT MONITORING REPORT: WESTERN SAHARA WAR ARCHIVES – A MONITORING DATABASE FOR THE II WAR IN WESTERN SAHARA Introduction With the resumption of the War in Western Sahara, a series of doubts gained a new dimension. Faced with the inaction of the International Institutions, the unfavorable or absent tone of the Media in relation to questions about Western Sahara, what would be the tone of the approach to the resumption of war? Would they be exempt and would they only demonstrate the facts? Would they broach the subject of the resumption of war? Or would there be no mention of the events? What will be the impact on the Saharawi populations? Bearing in mind that the vast majority live in refugee camps in Algeria, what will be the impact of this new conflict on them? And by extension, what is the impact on populations living in the so-called “Occupied Territories”? Considering that, since 1963, Western Sahara has been a Non-Autonomous Territory, under the article 73 of Chapter XI of the United Nations Charter, in practicality, it has been in a state of siege since 1960. The first clashes were against colonial power, Spain, and later, against Mauritania and Morocco. The territorial mass that constitutes Western Sahara has been under effective military occupation, by the latter, since 1975. During the 80's of the 20th Century, the territory would end up being divided into two parts, by a military wall, with Morocco having occupied about 80% of the total territory - the most useful part and rich in natural resources - SADR, the remaining 20%. This artificial barrier, became known as the "Berm", whose physical expansion continues to the present day, having already been considered as the largest military wall of the contemporary era. In 1991, after several attempts at agreement and negotiations, it was possible to establish a ceasefire agreement between the POLISARIO Front and Morocco. Agreement that would be violated in the middle of the fourth quarter of 2020 by Morocco, thus restarting the armed conflict with POLISARIO's declaration of the end of the ceasefire. In order to carry out the monitoring of war events on the ground, and to understand how events would be reported in the rest of the world, the CEAUP Research Group number 2: African policies and territories, a work team dedicated to the theme: Internal and External Policy of African States, developed a project to collect and process data related to the war. The intention of this report is to present a first assessment of the activities, developed work, and its impact on the academic world and on the discourse surrounding the conflict, which the project had in its first year of existence. With that in mind, this report will be divided as follows: 1. Project Context; 2. Project Creation: a. Conceptualization of the Idea; b. Implementation of the Idea; pg. 8 PROJECT MONITORING REPORT: WESTERN SAHARA WAR ARCHIVES – A MONITORING DATABASE FOR THE II WAR IN WESTERN SAHARA 3. Operation Protocol: a. Documents: i. Typology; ii. Sources; iii. Collection Method; iv. Intended Subjects; b. News: i. Typology; ii. Sources; iii. Collection Method; iv. Intended Subjects; c. Military Resources: i. Typology; ii. Sources; iii. Collection Method; iv. Intended Subjects; 4. Work methodology: a. Research Teams: i. Typology; ii. Composition; 5. Difficulties; 6. Project Objectives; 7. Evaluation; 8. Future Actions; The accumulated experiences of other projects, lead us to conclude that the growing influence of the mass media, such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, the so-called Social Media, along with a, albeit decreasing, influence of the traditional Media, oblige us to carry out a serious analysis of all the functional resources involved in the project, in order to obtain a clear image of our presence in these spaces of debate. We must also bear in mind that the, constant aggregation and dissemination of information and sources, in an impartial and unbiased way, is one of the most important aspects, which contrasts with orthodox solutions, obfuscation of sources and partiality. This requires high precision, evaluation and definition of goals, sources, evaluation criteria and exclusion of primary and secondary sources, in their most varied forms. Therefore, the effort to analyze and monitor the project evaluation process is a priority, in order to understand its impact. Hence, it is important to be sure that the methodologies used in the project were the most correct. Consequently, a set of metrics and statistical data will be presented on the performance of the website developed by the CEAUP Team. The evaluation process will consist of the following elements: 1. Statistical analysis of the contents produced: A) News (typology, formats, language and country of broadcast); B) Military Data; pg. 9 PROJECT MONITORING REPORT: WESTERN SAHARA WAR ARCHIVES – A MONITORING DATABASE FOR THE II WAR IN WESTERN SAHARA C) Social Media. 2. An analysis of a varied set of statistical data and performance metrics from the website itself, trying to answer: a) In what way, the website, impacted the establishment of knowledge of this conflict? b) How this knowledge spread through the scientific community, and society in general? 3. After understanding the overview of the project, possible guidelines will be drawn for the future management of the project, in order to fill the gaps found. pg. 16 PROJECT MONITORING REPORT: WESTERN SAHARA WAR ARCHIVES – A MONITORING DATABASE FOR THE II WAR IN WESTERN SAHARA a) Documents b) News i. Typology •Written Press •Digital Press •Digital Video •Audio ii. Sources •Official and/or internationally accredited Media and/or Press Groups •Blogs are not considered sources as they cannot be independently verified iii. Form of Collection •Creation of a Google Alerts system, with a system of keywords, in different languages, so that news with the desired characteristics are automatically and efficiently collected •Collection through partners of physical copies of newspapers and/or magazines iv. Intended Subjects •News dealing with the war in Western Sahara •News that address the issue of Human Rights in the context of war, when applied to the context of war and/or in the occupied territories in Western Sahara i. Typology •Official communications from and/or Countries and/or International Political Institutions •UN official announcements •AU Official Announcements •EU Official Announcements •Court Decisions ii. Sources •State Media if/and/when applicable, e.g.: Lusa, SPS, Morocco World News •Official institutions such as Political Parties, UN, AU, Parliaments, e.g.: Deutcher Bundestag, European Commission, Pan-African Parliament •Courts iii. Form of Collection •Active search on the institutions' websites •Monitoring of Institutions iv. Intended Subjects •All and any official document, political intervention, debate, deliberation, decisions, requests for information whose theme involves and/or the war in Western Sahara, and/or Human Rights in the context of war and/or in the occupied territories in Western Sahara Figure 7Documents Collection Process Schematics Figure 8-News Collection Process Schematics pg. 17 PROJECT MONITORING REPORT: WESTERN SAHARA WAR ARCHIVES – A MONITORING DATABASE FOR THE II WAR IN WESTERN SAHARA c) Military Resources d) Social Media For more information, consult the team's Editorial Note, which can be seen and consulted in the About Us section on the website: https://www.westernsahara-wa.com/about-wswa/ i. Typology •Official Military Reports published by SADR •Official Reports by Morocco ii. Sources •Sahara Press Service •So far there are no Moroccan sources iii. Form of Collection •Daily verification of sources for official military reports iv. Intended Subjects •Official military reports i. Typology •Data collected on the social network Twitter, using the Social Network Analysis program ii. Sources •Twitter iii. Form of Collection •Use of a data management program in social networks •R Program iv. Intended Subjects •Tweets that mention a set of predefined keywords Figure 9-Military Information Collection Process Schematics Figure 10-Social Media Collection Process Schematics pg. 18 PROJECT MONITORING REPORT: WESTERN SAHARA WAR ARCHIVES – A MONITORING DATABASE FOR THE II WAR IN WESTERN SAHARA 4. Research Teams In methodological terms, the work team was divided into 3 (three) sub teams, to be named: a) News Team b) Statistics Team c) Twitter Team This subdivision intended to create small cores, dedicated to work with a set of specific data, nevertheless interconnected, in order to facilitate data processing. Despite having different subjects matters, the first two teams employ the same methodology, the difference lies in the sources used. 4.1. Work Methodology a) News Team The news team's main function is to analyze news and official documents that address the following topics: ✓ Mention of the War in Western Sahara; ✓ Violation of Human Rights in the Occupied Territories; ✓ Documentation issued by official entities in which there is direct reference to Western Sahara, the Occupied Territories and the War in Western Sahara; The news is obtained through a system of Google Alerts, built around the following Keywords: ⚫ "Ws Wa" ⚫ Guergarat ⚫ Polisario ⚫ saara ocidental ⚫ Sahara Occidental ⚫ Sahara occidentale ⚫ Sahara Ocidental ⚫ Västra Sahara ⚫ Vestre Sahara ⚫ Vestsahara ⚫ Westelijke Sahara ⚫ western sahara ⚫ western sahara war archives ⚫ westsahara ⚫ Западная Сахара ⚫ תיברעמה הרהס ⚫ ةيبرغلا ءارحصلا pg. 19 PROJECT MONITORING REPORT: WESTERN SAHARA WAR ARCHIVES – A MONITORING DATABASE FOR THE II WAR IN WESTERN SAHARA ⚫ 撒哈拉沙漠西部 ⚫ 西サハラ Triage Criteria: 1) Being news published by reputable newspapers or journalistic entities (e.g., Washington Post; El País; Lusa; Der Spiegel; ...); 2) Not being posts from Blogs, Vlogs, or merely opinion channels; 3) Not being reposts of Blogs, Vlogs, or merely opinion channels; 4) Being videos or reports from reputable sources; a) Videos or reports from reliable sources are collected and stored on a device prepared for the case, to be repost later in a proper channel; 5) Address the defined theme; 6) They do not address the defined themes. Results are received daily, in two specially prepared email inbox. On average, between 100-400 notifications are received, for triage, daily in each email inbox. This volume is subject to a triage, in order to separate the news by: ◼ News that meets the criteria; ◼ News that does not meet the criteria. After triage, the news that meet the evaluation criteria are collected in PDF format. The last step is the upload to the website. This also has a set of rules and procedures that must be followed. Thus, during the upload procedure, it is necessary to fill in a form with the following categories: 1. Title in the original language; 2. A title in English a. If the news article does not have the title in English, a translation of it will be made; b. This is done in order to augment its visibility and searchability by the search engines like Google; 3. Upload of the PDF of the news article; 4. Link to the original news; 5. Original date of the news; 6. Issuer; 7. Language of Issue; 8. Country of Issue; 9. Typology; 10. Key words. This form is mandatory, and the upload of material is only possible after completing the input of the requested data in all fields. This team is also in charge of collecting Official Documentations. And in this sense, whenever there is a mention of a new document, whether through a press release, or a pg. 20 PROJECT MONITORING REPORT: WESTERN SAHARA WAR ARCHIVES – A MONITORING DATABASE FOR THE II WAR IN WESTERN SAHARA news article, or through a periodic active search on the Institutions' websites, this official document is collected. Evaluation Criteria for the Documentation: 1. Documents published by Official Institutions: a) ONU; b) AU; c) EU; d) NATO; e) National Parliaments; f) National Courts; g) International Courts; 2. Address the defined theme: a) If Yes, they are collected. b) If No, they are not collected. 3. The collection is made in PDF format. Mandatory fields to fill in the form: 1) Title in the original language; 2) Title in English, and if the Official Document does not have the title in English, a translation will be made; 3) Upload of the PDF of the Official Document; 4) Link to the original Official Document; 5) Original date of the Official Document; 6) Issuer; 7) Language of Issue; 8) Issuing Country: a) For the determination of this point, the capitals of the countries are used, and in the case of institutions, the location of their headquarters is used as a determining factor. Eg: UN-New York-USA; EU-Brussels-Belgium; 9) Typology: a) Western Sahara: i. Official Documents published by SADR via SPS; b) Morocco: i. Official Documents published by News Agencies belonging to the State; ii. Official Documents published by the Government; c) UN: i. Secretary General; ii. Security Council; iii. High Commissioner for Refugees; d) AU: i. Assembly of Heads of State; ii. Executive Council; iii. Permanent Representatives Committee; iv. Pan-African Parliament; v. Peace and Security Council; pg. 21 PROJECT MONITORING REPORT: WESTERN SAHARA WAR ARCHIVES – A MONITORING DATABASE FOR THE II WAR IN WESTERN SAHARA vi. African Commission on Human and People’s Rights; vii. African Court on Human and People’s Rights; viii. AU Commission on International Law; e) Europe: i. Parliaments of European countries; ii. Heads of State of European countries; iii. Institutions from European countries; iv. EU Parliament; v. EU Justice Court; vi. European Commission; vii. EU MP Groups; f) Africa: i. African countries parliaments; ii. Heads of State of African countries; iii. Institutions from African countries; g) America: i. Parliaments of American countries; ii. Heads of State of American countries; iii. Institutions from American countries; h) Asia: i. Parliaments of Asian countries; ii. Heads of State of Asian countries; iii. Institutions from Asian countries; 10) Key words/Tags b) Statistics Team The statistics and maps team's main function are: the statistical and cartographic treatment of the data collected in the War Communiqués and by the statistical data generated by the news team. It does not have an email prepared to receive the military reports, designated as War Communiqués, as these are published on the SPS website. Since Morocco continues to claim that there is no war, there is still no military data on its side, however as soon as the situation is reversed, that data will be collected, processed and posted on the website as well. Military data is treated as follows: ⚫ Collection: 1) Search for War Communiqués on the SPS website: a) The War Communiqués are published in Spanish, French and Arabic; 2) Collection of War Communiqués in PDF format, in Spanish: a) The Castilian language was selected for reasons of logical consistency, since it was the language in which, the War Communiqués, presented more data related to the war and offered additional information about the attacks; 3) Data is collected daily. ⚫ Treatment of Information: 1) Date identification: a) The analysis period is 7 days; i. Data collection starts on Monday; ii. Data collection is completed on Sunday; pg. 22 PROJECT MONITORING REPORT: WESTERN SAHARA WAR ARCHIVES – A MONITORING DATABASE FOR THE II WAR IN WESTERN SAHARA iii. Additional Requirement: check the following Monday, after the completion of the data collection, in order to confirm if more data were added, about the attacks on Sunday’s, which were not present in the Sunday War Communiqué; 2) Identification of attack sites: a) In order to facilitate the reading of this data, and after several meetings with Saharawi entities, it was possible to establish the following divisions: i. Super region: 1. Designated as Military Region; 2. There are 3 (three) Military Regions, namely: a) Oued Daraa i. Demarcated on maps in Green; ii. Demarcated in the tables in Green; iii. Demarcated in the graphics in Green; b) Saguia El Hamara i. Demarcated on maps in Yellow; ii. Demarcated in the tables in Yellow; iii. Demarcated in the graphics in Yellow; c) Rio de Oro i. Demarcated on maps in Red; ii. Demarcated in the tables in Red; iii. Demarcated in the graphics in Red; 3. Each Military Region is designated by the acronym RM+nº: a) RRegião (Region in Portuguese), M-Militar (Militar in Portuguese); b) Therefore, the Military Regions are: i. RM1-Oued Daraa; ii. RM2-Saguia El Hamara; iii. RM3-Rio de Oro; ii. Sectors: 1. Each Military Region is subdivided into sectors; 2. Each sector is designated by the acronym S+nº (S1, S2, S3, …); a) SSector (Sector in Portuguese); 3. There are 13 (thirteen) sectors, namely: S1-Aaga S2-Touzigui S3-EL Mahabes S4-Farisa S5-Haouza S6-Smara S7-Amgala S8-Guelta Zemmour S9-Oum Dreiga S10-El Bagari S11-Auserd S12-Techla S13-Bir Guendouz 4. S1-S4 are located within Oued Daraa; 5. S5-S8 are located within Saguia El Hamara; pg. 23 PROJECT MONITORING REPORT: WESTERN SAHARA WAR ARCHIVES – A MONITORING DATABASE FOR THE II WAR IN WESTERN SAHARA 6. S9-S13 are located within Rio de Oro; 3) Sectors Identification; a) The Sectors are the only consistent location mentioned by the War Communiqués; 4) Zones Identification: a) A Zone consists in a designated location within the Sector; b) Identification of the Zones within the Sectors where, at least, 1 (one) attack were reported; c) Without a clear identification of the Zone, the attack will be counted as an attack, according to the reported number, in the stated Sector; i. They will also be classified as Unknown; d) Through the crossing of data, whenever there is a location that appears registered in two sectors, that location will be considered as a Border Zone, being marked and/or remarked on the border between Sectors on the maps; e) Collection of the names of the locations in order to create a Database on the Spelling of Names; f) This Database will be turn into a future publication as a Glossary of Names; 5) Quantification of the number of attacks: a) Without the specific mention of a number, the attack is counted as 1 (one) attack; 6) All these data are placed in an Excel sheet prepared for this purpose; 7) Extra information mentioned in War Communiqués, such as destruction of specific bases, movement of troops, destruction of radars, …, are mentioned as follows: a) Inside the Excel cell: Name of the location (nº*); b) Bottom of the table: under Obs.: (nº*) additional information; 8) After compiling the Data, they are transformed into Graphics: a) There are 3 types of charts: i. Bars for counting attacks, divided by Regions and Week Comparison; ii. Circulars counting percentages; iii. Linear showing the progression of attacks; 9) After completing the Excel, the data are also transformed into geographic information, using a GIS program: a) Program used for creating maps is QGIS 3.16 Hannover; b) The program used to create the interactive map displayed on the website Home Page is ArcGIS Online; c) The base of the map is OpenStreetMap; d) Signaling of attacks is made with the international symbol of explosion; e) Unknown will be placed, in the maps, near the main City of the Sector, in order to count the attack as an unidentified attack in the sector; f) Due to the lack of accurate geographic information, all attacks will be placed close to the military wall; g) Military wall is demarcated in Brown with emphasis in Red; h) Regions are delimited by a polygon of the color assigned to that region and with a double-color prism (color assigned to the region + white) and name; i) Sectors are identified by the acronym S+nº; j) Main cities of the sectors are identified with a blue prism; 10) All this information can be found in the legend dedicated to the semiology of the map, which is located at the bottom of the map; 11) Additional information contained in the reports is placed in a section called Most Attacked Location; pg. 24 PROJECT MONITORING REPORT: WESTERN SAHARA WAR ARCHIVES – A MONITORING DATABASE FOR THE II WAR IN WESTERN SAHARA 12) Once the construction of the Map is completed, two files are issued: a) 1 (one) PNG: i. In the PNG version, is added one extra element, designated as Highlight of the Week. A small map showing the location with the most attacks or with pertinent information; 1. This Map is outlined by a blue line; 2. The same delimitation is placed around the sector in the map legend; ii. PNG file is added to the Excel sheet, and immediately afterwards a Printing Area is created with the following name: Week X: From dd-mm-yyyy to ddmm-yyyy, in PDF format; b) 1 (one) PDF; i. Standalone Map; ii. Name: Western Sahara War Map Week X: dd-mm-yyyy to dd-mm-yyyy; 13) The Standalone Map, the statistical information and the PDFs of the official War Communiqués, are then uploaded onto the Site; a) Similar to Official News and Documents, it is necessary to fill in a form with the following categories: i. Title: 1. War Communiqués in the original language; 2. MapWestern Sahara War Map Week X: dd-mm-yyyy to dd-mm-yyyy; 3. ExcelWar Report Week X: dd-mm-yyy to dd-mm-yyyy; ii. PDF; 1. The upload is done separately, that is, each PDF is individually inserted into the platform, following the subsequent logic: a) War Communiqués (one by one); b) Map; c) Excel; iii. Link to the official War Communiqué; 1. War Communiqué only; iv. Original date of the official War Communiqué; 1. War Communiqué only; 2. Map and Excel - Date of the upload; v. Issuer: 1. SPSWar Communiqué; 2. CEAUPMaps and Excel; vi. Language of Emission: 1. War Communiqué - Spanish; 2. Maps and ExcelEnglish; vii. Country of Emission: 1. War Communiqué – Western Sahara; 2. Maps and ExcelPortugal; viii. Typology: 1. DocumentsOfficial War Communiqués; 2. War Data/MapsPDF Maps; 3. War Data/Military DataExcel PDF; ix. Key words/Tags; x. The cartographic data created in QGIS, in a second phase, are imported into the ArcGIS, so it can be displayed in an interactive format, on the Home Page of the Site. pg. 25 PROJECT MONITORING REPORT: WESTERN SAHARA WAR ARCHIVES – A MONITORING DATABASE FOR THE II WAR IN WESTERN SAHARA This team is also responsible for, the statistical treatment of the metadata generated by the News Team. The main intention is to understand which are the main broadcasting languages, the format and in which country they were broadcast. In this way, it is possible to understand the real scale of the information about the conflict. The data will be processed in the following form: 1) It will be used the News Team division: 1. Official Documents: a) Will be treated under the umbrella of Political Data in the War Data Menu; b) Statistical Treatment: i. Counting: presented in a Table Format; ii. Percentage: presented in a Circular Graph Format; 2. Articles: a) Will be treated under the umbrella of Media Data in the War Data Menu; b) Statistical Treatment: i. It will be divided into: 1. News Typology; a) Counting: presented in a Table Format; b) Percentage: presented in a Circular Graph Format; 2. Country of Emission; a) Counting: presented in a Table Format; b) Visualization: presented in a World Map Format with blue circles representing the totality in each country; 3. Language of Publish; a) Counting: presented in a Table Format; b) Percentage: presented in a Circular Graph Format; In the last counting performed, the following data were obtained: 1. There was a total of 102 news collected; 2. 8 languages were counted; 3. Spanish was the most common language of publish with 29 record news, follow by English with 28 recorded news, and French, with 25 recorded news; 4. The most found support was Digital with 114 news items; 5. Europe was the region with the most published news, with 73, followed by Morocco with 13, and Africa with 12; 6. The country with the most news recorded was Spain with 22, followed by Morocco with 13, France with 11 and Germany with 10. In comparison, Western Sahara only issued 7 news; 7. 77% of all Official Documentation were issued by SADR, with a total of 68 documents issued, follow by Europe, with 10%, 9 documents issued, and Africa with 8%, 7 documents issued. In comparison, Morocco only issued 1 official document; pg. 32 PROJECT MONITORING REPORT: WESTERN SAHARA WAR ARCHIVES – A MONITORING DATABASE FOR THE II WAR IN WESTERN SAHARA A total of 195 clicks and a total of 16,700 Prints were obtained, with a CTR of 1.2% and an average position of 30 search results. In terms of analysis, a good average CTR is around 1.91% overall and 5.46% for academic searches aided by Google Ads. Therefore, the site is 0.7% below the average CTR and 3.55% of academic searches helped by Google Ads. As there is no specific metric of direct comparison, we accept the differences as natural results of both the theme specificity (War), the location (Western Sahara) and the fact that we do not use the Google Ads engine. Therefore, we can consider this a good result, with room for growth. And this is indicated when we consider the average position in search engines, 30, and the total number of impressions. Figure 12Total clicks compared to Total traffic in the last 12 months Figure 13Average CTR compared to Average Position pg. 33 PROJECT MONITORING REPORT: WESTERN SAHARA WAR ARCHIVES – A MONITORING DATABASE FOR THE II WAR IN WESTERN SAHARA The date with the most clicks was 26/06/2021 with 4 clicks out of 211 impressions, with a CTR of 1.9% and an average position of 34.9. We note that on June 23, the High Commissioner for Human Rights reiterated the need to reactivate a program of visits to the occupied territories, which had been suspended since 2015, due to the intentional obstruction of Morocco. This may have been the reason for the increase in searches. However, the date with the most prints was 16/06/2021, with 2 clicks out of 254 Prints, with a CTR of 0.8% and an average position of 30. Figure 14Date with the most clicks Figure 15Date with the most Prints pg. 34 PROJECT MONITORING REPORT: WESTERN SAHARA WAR ARCHIVES – A MONITORING DATABASE FOR THE II WAR IN WESTERN SAHARA The country of origin with the most clicks on the page is Spain with 35 clicks out of 1762 prints, with a CTR of 2% and an average position of 16. Followed by France with 29 clicks out of 1350 impressions, with a CTR of 2.1% and an average position of 19.4. These two countries have large communities of Saharawis, the so-called Diaspora, which may explain these results. While the United States of America was the country where the most prints were generated, with 2274 impressions, 11 clicks, a CTR of 0.5% and an average position of 39.5. The most visited page was the Home Page with 28 clicks, 472 prints, a CTR of 5.9% and an average position of 13.9. The most used device to visit was the Personal Computer, with 97 clicks, 9997 prints, 1% CTR and an average position of 36.9. However, the device that generated the most CTR was the Tablet with 2.2%, with 4 clicks out of 184 prints and an average position of 16.7. Figure 17Country with most Prints Figure 16Country with the most Clicks pg. 35 PROJECT MONITORING REPORT: WESTERN SAHARA WAR ARCHIVES – A MONITORING DATABASE FOR THE II WAR IN WESTERN SAHARA Finally, about 5999 external links were counted, that is, there are this total number of links on sites outside the project, which lead directly to the project site. This list is headed by Porunsaharalibre.org, with 5948 links. In second place is the African.eu website (the CEAUP website), with 23 links. The third place is occupied by nodexlgraphygallery.org, the website of the program used by the Twitter Team, with 7 links. Followed by a series of websites and blogs connected with Diaspora or associations in support of the Saharawi cause. Finally, we emphasize that the compilation of the words Western Sahara War Archives was the text, or variations of it, most used to search for the Site. The other options being: war data; frente polisario briefing on the situation in guergarat; فيشر برحلا يف ءارحصلا ةيبرغلا (which means www westernsahara wa com htttps in Arabic); el archivo de guerra del sáhara occidental (Western Sahara war archive in Spanish); westsahara kriegsarchiv (Western Sahara war archive in German); 13 november 2020. Figure 18Page with the most clicks Figure 20 – Most used devices Figure 19Top linking pages, last 12 months Figure 21Top linking sites in the last 12 months Figure 22Total external links counted for in the last 12 months pg. 36 PROJECT MONITORING REPORT: WESTERN SAHARA WAR ARCHIVES – A MONITORING DATABASE FOR THE II WAR IN WESTERN SAHARA Figure 23Top link text, last 12 months pg. 37 PROJECT MONITORING REPORT: WESTERN SAHARA WAR ARCHIVES – A MONITORING DATABASE FOR THE II WAR IN WESTERN SAHARA 8. Future Actions Looking at the main problems encountered, the proposed objectives, the evaluation metrics and their results, we can conclude that the project, in the first 12 (twelve) months of life, is performing in line with expectations, having plenty of room to grow. Therefore, we dedicate this point to outlining some guidelines for actions for the next 12 (twelve) months: 1. Investing in the short-term expansion of the News Team within a period, never exceeding, 3 months; 2. Consider a greater integration of students into the project; 3. Publish the Glossary of Names and Meanings, in the short-medium term, between 3-6 months; 4. Publish a more in-depth statistical analysis report on data related to the War, in the short-medium term, between 3-6 months; 5. Develop a Communicative Strategy, in order to transform more Impressions into Clicks, increasing the CTR, in the short-medium term, between 3-6 months; 6. In the long term, in a period between 6-12 months, establish more partnerships with other institutions in order to increase the visibility of the Site; 7. In the short-medium term, within a period not exceeding 6 months, try to hold an academic conference to present the results of the site; 8. Incorporate an element capable of analyzing news, in order to detect Fake News; 9. Perform a meta-analysis within Twitter, in order to understand the interaction between the CEAUP team posts, repost and likes; 10. Perform a new analysis within 12 months; pg. 38 PROJECT MONITORING REPORT: WESTERN SAHARA WAR ARCHIVES – A MONITORING DATABASE FOR THE II WAR IN WESTERN SAHARA Conclusion When the war in Western Sahara reignited, the CEAUP, a study center based in the FLUP, focused on African affairs, aware of the political situation surrounding Western Sahara, raised a set of questions regarding the treatment that war information could come to have. The project developed was an information aggregator site, called Western Sahara War Archives, with the following link: https://www.westernsahara-wa.com/. The intention was to collect reliable information from known sources such as Lusa, Der Spiegel, Washington Post, UN, AU, NATO, and cross this information with statistical data produced by the team, based on official reports and documents, in order to understand how the subject of the War was not only being communicated, but also in what way, to whom, in what languages, with what sources, … Throughout this report, the procedures used by the three work teams were presented, as well as the ways of evaluating the project, the performance metrics and the values that were obtained during its first year of activity. Therefore, for the period under analysis, a total of 2055 news items were analyzed, 90 statistical analysis documents and 38 analysis documents from the social media Twitter, in a total of 2183 publications. Regarding the traffic obtained by the site, there were a total of 195 clicks and a total of 16,700 prints, with a CTR of 1.2% and an average position of 30 search results. The country of origin with the most clicks is Spain, with 35 clicks out of 1762 prints, with a CTR of 2% and an average position of 16. While the United States of America was the country where the most prints were generated, 2274, 11 clicks, a CTR of 0.5% and an average position of 39.5. The most visited page was the Home Page with 28 clicks, 472 prints, a CTR of 5.9% and an average position of 13.9. The most used device to visit was the Personal Computer, with 97 clicks, 9979 prints, 1% CTR and an average position of 36.9. About 5999 external links to the site were counted. Taking into account all the problems encountered during the project, their specificity, the project fulfilled its primary and secondary objectives. Starting its second year of activity with very encouraging and positive results. As there is no benchmark for a comparative assessment of the site's performance, due to its specificity, this report will serve as a future benchmark for projects of similar scope. It will serve as an element of performance evaluation, through a direct comparison between the results obtained in this second evaluation with the results described in this report.