The Rift Valley Institute (RVI) is pleased to announce that applications are open for our 2025 annual field courses on the Horn of Africa, Sudan and South Sudan, and the Great Lakes. The RVI annual residential field courses, running since 2004, are taught by leading academics, researchers and development practitioners and are designed for policymakers, diplomats, aid workers, researchers, activists, journalists, or investors, to deepen their understanding of the ever-changing landscapes of these regions.
The courses will run between May and June 2025. More details on the dates and venue will be forthcoming in early 2025. Please register your interest to attend our courses by completing the online application forms below:
Horn of Africa: 26th–29th May 2025
THEME: TURBULENT WATERS IN THE HORN
Led by Ken Menkhaus
The Horn of Africa is entering a fifth year of extreme turbulence, a period that is testing the resilience of its states and citizens. The onset of the era of crisis began with the 2020 COVID pandemic and Ethiopia’s bloody Tigray war and has not abated. Today, the region is roiled by armed conflict, unrest and fragmentation within states, deep political tensions between states and the spillover of violence, forced displacement of populations, climate crisis and terrorism across state lines.
The expression ‘turbulent waters’ is a metaphor for an environment that is difficult to navigate politically, but we chose the expression as the theme for the RVI Horn of Africa course 2025 for its literal meaning as well. Never have the waters emanating from and surrounding the Horn been such a source of tension and conflict, from dangerous disputes over the Nile waters to global and regional contestation over the region’s increasingly valuable seaports, fisheries and offshore oil in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. This year’s course will include sessions devoted to the region’s many ‘water wars’ and what they reveal about wider political economy dynamics in the Horn of Africa.
Registration Link: Horn of Africa Course 2025
The Great Lakes: 2nd–5th June 2025
THEME: INTERLOCKING CRISES IN THE GREAT LAKES
Led by Jason Kayani Stearns
The Great Lakes region of Africa faces its most severe political crisis in more than twenty years. The M23 crisis in the eastern DRC has displaced close to 3 million people. While the UN peacekeeping mission (MONUSCO) prepares to withdraw from the DRC, there is little sign of a functional peace process to address both immediate and root causes of the conflict. The conflict also features heavy involvement by Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi, and has drawn in the East African Community, the African Union and the Southern Africa Development Community. Other challenges are on the horizon. Succession battles in Congo and Uganda promise to render the upcoming elections in both countries contentious, while the polls in Burundi will test political stability there, especially given the gloomy economic situation.
The 2025 Great Lakes Course will explore the political economy of these countries, their governance challenges and the importance of shifting global geopolitics, as well as debate paths toward a more equitable and peaceful future.
Registration Link: Great Lakes Course 2025
Sudan and South Sudan: 9th–12th June 2025
THEME: ‘WAR MAKES STATES AND STATES MAKE WAR’
Led by Nicki Kindersley and Raga Makawi
Failed transitions, war and economic collapse have shaped Sudan and South Sudan in the last year. Our course will tackle immediate questions of the dynamics of regime collapse and violent contestation for control and the political economies of famine, mass displacement and forced migration. It also explores the historical structures of how armies and conflicts work; the renewed political economies of violence; the impacts of changing climate, extractive economies, labour markets and food systems; and generative civic action under extreme conditions of violence and instability.
The course team of academics and activists will discuss new research insights into Sudanese and South Sudanese definitions of democracy; sovereignty as part of emerging grassroots political projects; genealogies of armies and security systems; the politics of humanitarian aid; and the more recent antiwar projects and a possible long-term transition into peace.
Registration Link: Sudan & South Sudan Course 2025
RVI is an independent, non-profit organisation working in eastern and central Africa since 2001 to advance useful knowledge of the region and its diverse communities, bringing a better understanding of local realities to bear on social and political action.
