Joel Otieno | XCEPT
In this video, Joel Otieno, Programme Manager for the XCEPT project at the Rift Valley Institute, reflects on the importance of creating spaces for dialogue, reflection and collaboration around cross-border conflict in the Horn of Africa. He highlights how the recent workshop brought together a wide range of stakeholders – from policymakers to practitioners – […]
Wintana Alemseged | XCEPT
In this video, Wintana Alemseged, Senior Political Adviser at the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), shares reflections on the development of the XCEPT programme in the Horn of Africa. She discusses how the workshop surfaced both existing insights and a significant new idea – expanding the programme to include interstate boundaries. While XCEPT has […]
Thinking about Borderlands: Observations and implications from XCEPT programme research
Do the ways in which policymakers and national governments view borderlands reflect how the communities living there experience them? Building on this, can a better understanding of the characteristics of borderlands help in promoting development, improving governance and making more effective policy and programming choices in these contexts? Such are the questions that have informed […]
Digital Governance and Security in the Horn of Africa
While digital finance—including mobile money—has developed unevenly across Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya, such technologies are nevertheless transforming everyday economic activities. In some cases, borderlands and cross-border financial flows are central to these digital developments and are driving further innovation. From the perspective of states affected by institutional weakness and/or security threats, digital financial technologies represent […]
Legally Informal: Women, conflict and cross-border trade in the Mandera tri-border area
In the Mandera triangle—a pastoralist region encompassing the point at which the borders of Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia meet—the reality of local and cross-border trade often diverges widely from official state policies of control. This disjunction has created a grey zone in which policy contradictions form an integral part of the regulatory environment. With this […]
Making Sense of Borderlands
This think piece is an extract of a longer paper taking stock of the roughly 40 X-Border studies carried out between 2019 and 2025 under the auspices of the Rift Valley Institute’s XCEPT programme. If we are to fully grasp conflict dynamics and related phenomena in borderland areas—whether that be in Africa or elsewhere—we must […]
Ethiopia’s Red Sea Politics: Corridors, ports and security in the Horn of Africa
The Horn of Africa is a region marked by complex infrastructural interdependencies, where the decline and emergence of trade corridors continue to reshape the economic and political relations within and between states. This study draws on the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in January 2024 granting Ethiopia access to the sea in exchange for recognition […]
XCEPT Local Research Legacy: Sharing the experiences of women amid agricultural transitions in the borderlands
I became involved in the Cross-border Conflict Evidence, Policy, and Trends (XCEPT) programme’s Local Research Network (LRN) at its inception in 2018. During the following years, the network introduced me to a wider community of researchers who share a similar interest in cross-border issues. This has led to extensive knowledge sharing and fruitful collaborations, particularly in […]
XCEPT Local Research Legacy: How collaborative research and mentorship approaches have shaped my research capacity and interest
I was first invited to join the Cross-border Conflict Evidence, Policy, and Trends (XCEPT) programme in 2019, having previously worked with the Rift Valley Institute (RVI) on research in South Sudan. This innovative project brought together international experts and early career researchers from across Africa and Asia under the umbrella of the Local Research Network (LRN). I […]
XCEPT Local Research Legacy: Xogta xuduudaha (Knowledge of the borders)
In 2019, I became a local researcher with the Cross-border Conflict Evidence, Policy, and Trends (XCEPT) programme, run by the Rift Valley Institute (RVI), an independent non-profit organization seeking to foster local knowledge on social, political and economic development in Eastern and Central Africa. Though this was not my first research experience, it was my introduction to being part of […]