The government archive in Juba suffered badly during the civil war in Southern Sudan. Tens of thousands of documents were removed from the Records Office, disordered, and stored in sacks in damp basements. Many have been damaged by termites,…
News
SEARCH
NEWS TYPES
REGION
On 18-19 February 2013, RVI and the Somalia NGO Consortium co-hosted a two-day 'Introduction to Somalia' course at the Lukenya Getaway in Kenya. RVI managed the first day's event, providing a brief introduction to the history, politics, and culture of…
The RVI’s 2014 annual field courses, now in their eleventh year, were held from May to July in Eastern and Central Africa. The Horn of Africa Course held in Kenya, from 31 May to 7 June 2014, and covered…
The South Sudan Law Society's publication, In Brief, covers critical issues in legal and constitutional development in South Sudan. An article in the inaugural issue by Victor Lowilla explains how criminal defendants are often treated as guilty until proven innocent, against basic…
The annual Hargeysa International Book Fair took place in August 2013 in the Somaliland capital. The star attraction was the poet Mohamed Ibrahim Warsame, “Hadraawi”, now in his seventies. (The meaning of his nickname, "Hadraawi", which was given to…
In National Dialogue in Sudan, a paper for the Sudan Democracy First Group, RVI Fellow Atta el-Battahani examines the successes and failures of national dialogue in Sudan and South Sudan, from 1956 to 2012. He identifies a series of recurrent obstacles: the…
Le RVI a le plaisir d’annoncer la publication des versions françaises des deux premiers rapports du Projet Usalama sur les groupes armés dans l’est de la République démocratique du Congo. Le premier rapport, intitulé Du CNDP au M23: évolution…
The seventh RVI Usalama report on armed movements in the DRC focusses on two groups operating in Ituri District, the FNI and the FRPI. The report, by Henning Tamm, analyses these two mainly Lendu armed groups and considers the…
June and July were months of intensive study for students on the Institute’s annual field courses. The courses involved over 140 participants, thirty teachers, and an administrative staff of eight. The 2013 season ended mid-July with the last of the…
Jama Musse Jama, the director of the Redsea Cultural Foundation is one of the winners of this year’s Cultura della Solidarietà prize, awarded in a ceremony on 27 September 2014 in Pistoia, Italy. The organising committee commended Jama for his ‘exemplary…
Recent Publications

‘THE FUEL IS US’: WATER, OIL AND DEBT ON THE SUDAN-SOUTH SUDAN BORDERLANDS
February 18, 2025
South Sudan and Sudan’s borderlands are run by a patchwork of armed authorities. Since early 2019, when opposition forces were effectively wiped out, these zones of control have remained relatively fixed, even as the war in Sudan drew close to

Conflict, displacement and children in paid work in the Sudan-South Sudan borderlands
February 17, 2025
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 South Sudan. The author draws on her research in 2024 as part of the XCEPT

DOMINANT PATTERNS AND DYNAMICS OF URBAN CONTESTATIONS IN HAWASSA
February 12, 2025
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 of significant socio-economic and political change. In this regard, Hawassa in Sidama region provides an