including all events and fatalities (Table A6), and when using categories of violence as in the previous section. Results using UCDP data for one-sided and non-state violence are presented in Table A7. Results using ACLED data for violence against civilians and battles are presented in Table A8.

Overall, we find a different impact of the presence of mines depending on the types of mines. In most specifications, higher revenues from gold produced by small artisanal mines is positively associated with more violence. This may be because gold is the only mineral that eludes certification and supply chain initiatives and/or because artisanal gold mines have a consistently higher presence of armed groups than other minerals (Leysen et al. 2023). Copper and cobalt, by contrast, are mined outside the most conflict-affected provinces under consideration here (North and South Kivu) and instead are subject to much more government control because of their importance for government revenues. Higher revenue from cobalt mines is associated with more total violent events, and in particular more violence against civilians and more battles using ACLED data (Table A8). Higher revenue from copper mines is associated with less violence, in particular for violence against civilians and battles.

Mining revenue is generally not interacting with roads. A crucial exception is the ACLED data which features two types of interactions. First, roads increase violence in moments/locations of high gold revenues. This is consistent with an increase of rapacity effects with roads in which high revenue areas become more accessible with roads and, hence, become more contested. On the other hand, roads have the opposite effect with cobalt revenue in the ACLED data (Table A8). An interpretation would be that roads here signal central engagement which reduces violence. However, nothing definitive should be taken away from this, as these results are not robust across violence datasets.

The completion of road projects when mining revenues increase has a very different impact if the revenues come from small artisanal gold mines or from large cobalt mines (Table A8). The completion of roads is associated with a decrease in violence when mining gold revenues are very low, but an increase in violence as the revenues increase. The opposite happens for cobalt mining revenues and road projects.

# **5.3 Discussing the Possible Channels**

There are at least three possible non-exclusive channels through which better roads can reduce violence. First, better roads allow government forces to maintain order. Second, better roads increase economic opportunities and may convince some current or future members of armed groups to stop fighting. Third, better roads can increase the incentives of armed forces to settle in a specific territory, to unilaterally control it, and to generate income from the population (i.e., “the stationary-banditry” theory). From discussions with World Bank practitioners, roads seem to play an important role in allowing government forces to bring back order and reduce violence.

We test the hypothesis that road projects increase economic opportunities using the same specification as in Table 1 replacing violence with nighttime lights. We use the average calibrated nightlights from the DMSP-OLS nighttime lights Time Series Version 4 for the period 27