The Rift Valley Forum for Research, Policy and Local Knowledge, previously the Nairobi Forum, was established in 2012 to provide a new space for critical discussion of political, economic and social issues in Eastern and Central Africa. The Forum is a venue for dispassionate examination of contested terrain, where researchers, practitioners, officials and activists–from the region and beyond–can meet on equal terms. The Forum programme includes the Horn, East Africa, Central Africa and the Sudans. Besides the Nairobi programme, Forum meetings have been held in Juba, Mogadishu and Hargeysa.
Details of upcoming and past Forum events can be seen below:
DATE
Recent Publications

Conflict, displacement and children in paid work in the Sudan-South Sudan borderlands
In this blog, Manal examines the pressures forcing many displaced people, including children, to seek paid labour to supplement dwindling support mechanisms in camps in

DOMINANT PATTERNS AND DYNAMICS OF URBAN CONTESTATIONS IN HAWASSA
Studying urban contestations in Ethiopia’s secondary cities can help us understand how the urban centres outside of Addis Ababa are evolving during an ongoing period

RESTRUCTURING THE MARGINS: EMERGING POLITICAL ORDERS IN KENYA’S BORDERLANDS
During the past decade, northern Kenya’s peripheral border counties have become key to the central state’s political and economic agenda. This synthesis report therefore uses