The third phase of RVI’s South Sudan Customary Authorities Project, funded by the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA), is now underway. The project aims to deepen understanding of customary authorities’ role within, and with, their communities, and to amplify their voices. The work builds on previous phases of the project, activities and findings of which are captured in two short films: The Chiefs Speak and We Are Here for the Sake of the People—currently also being translated into simple Arabic for wider dissemination; and a short publication, Now We Are Zero. The project also builds the research capacities of young South Sudanese researchers, most recently through a second short, intensive training course on oral history... MORE >

Mogadishu has for more than two decades been one of the most highly contested cities in the world. Since the collapse of President Siyad Barre’s government in early 1991, it has been the object of both military and political struggles almost without interruption. This report considers the current state of land governance and the nature of continuing land disputes in Mogadishu, which remains one of the most difficult and sensitive issues of the capital’s long process of recovery and normalization. Land disputes are not simply a result of the conflict that engulfed the city following the 1991 state collapse—land administration was weak and open to abuse long before the outbreak of conflict, and poor urban planning had prompted the disorderly... MORE >