Uganda Elections 2021: New Wine, old problems
On Wednesday 28 October 2020, the Rift Valley Institute, in partnership with the Heinrich Böll Foundation, hosted the third webinar in its elections series to discuss the upcoming elections in Uganda, which will be held in February 2021. Background President Yoweri Museveni (76), leader of the National Resistance Movement (NRM), is standing for a sixth […]
Gender, Protests and Political Change in Africa
On Friday 7 August, the Rift Valley Forum hosted a launch of the book, Gender, Protests and Political Change in Africa, edited by Awino Okech. The book brings together conceptual debates on the impact of youth-hood and gender on state building in Africa. It offers contemporary and interdisciplinary analyses on the role of protests as an alternative […]
Policing the Pandemic: Policing and Kenya’s response to COVID-19
In January 2020, the WHO declared COVID-19 a public health emergency. This led many countries to impose health and security measures to contain its spread. In March 2020, as the number of COVID-19 cases began to rise in Kenya, the government put in place various social restrictions to contain the virus, including a nation-wide […]
Women, Peace and Security, and CVE
On 14 May 2020, Dr Sahla Aroussi presented findings from her research, Strange bedfellows: Women, Peace and Security and Countering Violent Extremism in Kenya. The study examines the impact of linking women, peace and security with countering violent extremism on the ground in Kenya. Speakers Dr Sahla Aroussi Assistant Professor, Centre for Trust Peace […]
Guns, Guts and God
While many African countries have adopted regional policies on arms control in order to achieve the African Union’s goal of ‘Silencing the Guns by 2020’, proliferation of small arms continues to be a peace and security challenge. Four years ago, photographer and film director, Taye Balogun, set out to look into the status of […]
Migration, Movement and Mobility in the Era of COVID-19
Many governments have responded to the outbreak of COVID-19 by closing their borders and restricting the internal movement of people. While this kind of response has been deemed necessary to prevent the transmission of the virus, it has posed challenges to millions of people across the world by affecting normal patterns of migration and mobility. […]
Oral History in Somalia and South Sudan
CANCELLED Oral history and oral literature are valuable repositories of culture and key resources for written history. Eastern and Central Africa played a vital role in the recognition of the value of oral heritage. Among the pioneers were Jan Vansina working in the Congo, Okot p’Bitek in Uganda and B.W. Andrzejewski in Somalia. More recently, […]
The Ilemi Triangle
CANCELLED The Ilemi Triangle is a cartographic curiosity where South Sudan, Kenya and Ethiopia meet. To date, there has been no demarcation of this colonial border in East Africa, let alone any agreed definition, and it is often referred to as ‘a dispute area’. Despite the visible dispute there has been limited public explanation […]
Project Launch: Diaspora Humanitarianism in Complex Crises
Diaspora groups have emerged as key humanitarian actors in situations of protracted displacement and conflict. They are often the first to assist in acute emergencies and remain engaged during lengthy and complex crises. Their remittances reach remote areas and hard-to-reach populations, surpassing humanitarian aid sent to fragile states six times. On Friday 28 February, the […]
Food and Power in Somalia: Business as Usual?
Food and power in Somalia have been intimately linked for decades. From land grabs to the looting and diversion of aid to the geopolitics of the war on terror, food has played an important role in Somalia’s political economy. Although this has been examined in depth in the context of events in the 1990s, […]