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Rift Valley Institute

Making local knowledge work

René Lemarchand

lemarchand

René Lemarchand discusses the divergent responses to ethnicity in post-conflict Rwanda and Burundi during the Rift Valley Institute Great Lakes course, July 2010, Entebbe, Uganda.

Hasty Repatriation of Somali refugees

Hasty Repatriation of Somali refugees

On 15 February 2013, the Nairobi Forum hosted the launch of a report by the Mogadishu-based think tank, the Heritage Institute for Policy Studies (HIPS), entitled ‘Hasty Repatriation: Kenya’s attempt to send Somali refugees home’. The research was undertaken in late 2012, after the Kenyan government called for Somali refugees to assemble in refugee camps and return […]

Nuruddin Farah and Binyavanga Wainaina in conversation

Nuruddin Farah and Binyavanga Wainaina in conversation

On 18 April, the Rift Valley Institute’s Nairobi Forum, in partnership with Kwani Trust, hosted an evening with renowned Somali author Nuruddin Farah. Nuruddin is winner of the Neustadt International Prize for literature and the Lettre Ulysses Award, and has been nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature several times. His body of work includes […]

The Story of the Sudan Open Archive

The Story of the Sudan Open Archive

The Sudan Open Archive (http://www.sudanarchive.net) is free resource developed by the Rift Valley Institute. It provides online and offline access to digital versions of thousands of books and documents about Sudan and South Sudan.  From its origins in a shipping container in Lokichokio in northern Kenya, the Sudan Archive has come to include historical and […]

Continuities and Change in Somalia

Continuity and change in Somalia

The Nairobi Forum and the British Institute in Eastern Africa co-hosted the launch of a special Somalia edition of the Journal of Eastern African Studies on 19 April. The meeting, entitled ‘Continuities and change: Social, political and economic dynamics in Somalia since 1991’, examined the strengths and weaknesses of hybrid political structures, the roles of local authorities, […]

Pastoralism and Development in Africa

Pastoralism and development in Africa

On 29 April 2013, the Hon. Mohamed Elmi (MP, Tarbaj) presented a paper at thce Nairobi Forum on Lessons from the Ministry of Northern Kenya, reflecting on the work of his former ministry in supporting pastoralism and development in Kenya’s arid and semi arid lands. The former minister was one of several speakers at a […]

Nuruddin Farah remembers Chinua Achebe

Nuruddin Farah in conversation with Binyavanga Wainaina

The life of the Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe (1930-2013) was celebrated on 6 May 2014 at Bard College, New York, where Achebe taught for many years. There were spoken tributes from Nigerian author and art historian Teju Cole, from historian Myra Armstead, and from anthropologists Yuka Suzuki and John Ryle. The Somali writer Nuruddin Farah […]