In this EWNET podcast episode 7, Samiha Abdulmelik, a peacebuilding and gender practitioner with over 20 years of experience speaks to Dalaya Ashenafi. Samiha shares how her childhood, inspired by her father’s feminism and early exposure to global crises,…
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The Ethiopian Women Researchers Network (EWNET) hosted an online scholarly webinar on Friday, 30 January 2026, titled Writing Ethiopia into the World and Writing the World from Ethiopia. The webinar examined how Ethiopia has been represented within global knowledge production and how…
On EWNET Podcast Episode 6, Dr. Muna Abubeker, the first woman philologist in Ethiopia, shares her journey into the field, her research experiences, and her work in language and cultural studies. She reflects on the challenges and milestones in…
In this episode, EWNET Principal Dr. Netsanet Gebremichael speaks with Dr. Serawit Bekele Debele about her intellectual journey, from early academic interests to becoming a leading voice in German and Ethiopian academia. They explore her key works, including Locating…
In this episode, we meet Dr Mercy Fekadu, a researcher with a published book ‘Parliament in Ethiopia: Participation, Representation and Resistance’. She talks about how she got into research, the research process and her experiences in this process. She…
EWNET Podcast Episode 3 features Dr. Firehiwot Sintayehu Bahiru who is an Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Addis Ababa University. She concurrently holds the position of Interim Vice Executive Dean for Research and Engagement at…
EWNET Podcast Episode 2 offers a glimpse of experiences from Ethiopian women researchers: Muna Abubeker (PhD) and Weynishet Girma (PhD) with host Sara Bushira (an independent curator). In this episode, we meet Weynishet Girma Ayansa (PhD) and Muna Abubeker…
In EWNET Podcast Episode 1, EWNET Lead Principal Dr Netsanet Gebremichale and Deputy Principal Dalaya Ashenafi delve into the thought process behind EWNET, its conceptualization, and the network’s significance in mapping the presence and absence of women researchers. They…
Poet and playwright Sitawa Namwalie reflects on the deep impact of Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s work on her life and art. She speaks about growing up in post-colonial Kenya, the violence of language erasure in schools and how Ngugi’s Decolonising…
In this compelling interview, journalist and political commentator Mohammed Amin Abdishukri reflects on Kenya’s current wave of youth-led protests — often dubbed the Gen Z or Gen Zote movement. He places this moment within a historical continuum of resistance,…
Recent Publications

State Capture in Africa: How elite networks undermine democracy, development and security
June 24, 2026
Key points State capture has been increasingly recognized as a major governance challenge due to the way it helps to drive many of the most pressing problems facing contemporary states, including democratic erosion, corruption, economic exclusion, insecurity and declining trust

The New Geopolitics of Eastern Africa
June 17, 2026
On 20 May, the British Institute of Eastern Africa (BIEA), Chatham House, and the Rift Valley Institute (RVI) convened a group of experts to discuss the ‘The New Geopolitics of Eastern Africa’. The closed-door roundtable considered the ongoing transformation of

Commodification and Conflict in the Horn of Africa Borderlands
April 1, 2026
This report synthesizes findings from the Rift Valley Institute’s X-Border Local Research Network (2019–2025). In the surveyed studies, 25 leading local and international area specialists conducted extensive qualitative fieldwork across borderlands in South Sudan, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya and the Somali