Tahriib is an Arabic word that has gained prominence and popularity in the Somali language. In current parlance, young Somalis are said to be “going on tahriib” when they embark on the hazardous journey to Europe via the Sahara…
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The August 2015 peace agreement in South Sudan is in mortal danger. RVI senior researcher Aly Verjee argues in the East African that the collapse of the process will destabilise South Sudan further, with untold consequences for neighbouring states….
RVI senior researcher Aly Verjee discusses the economics of elections in Somaliland, electoral delays and drought. Early warning from Somaliland The experience of Somaliland already provides such evidence, and a warning. In collaboration with Adan Y. Abokor, Haroon A. Yusuf,…
The following commentary was published on IRIN commentary and was signed by 10 leading academics and humanitarian professionals, including RVI Fellow Nisar Majid and associate Abdullahi Khalif. Six years after a famine killed a quarter of a million people in…
This article was written by RVI Fellow Aly Verjee. On 23 March, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, speaking to the United Nations Security Council, declared: “There can be no real dialogue for as long as South Sudan is ravaged…
The conflict in South Sudan has entered its fourth year and the situation continues to deteriorate for many desperate civilians. There is an urgent need for the citizens of the East African region to impress upon their leaders the…
Under the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium, the South of Sudan was treated very differently to the North. For Major-General Herbert Kitchener, the British assault in southern Sudan on September 2nd 1898 was an exercise in both conquest and revenge. 13 years…
This book review was written by Richard Stupart. The book, South Sudan: a new history for a new nation, was written by RVI Fellow Douglas H. Johnson. There are precious few history books about South Sudan that look beyond its recent…
Aly Verjee is a visiting expert at the United States Institute of Peace and a fellow of the Rift Valley Institute. Migration crises in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa reconfigured global politics. So why – as the…
Africa’s youngest country doesn’t have a museum yet in which to display its national archives; it would have to be built with the help of donors. … The project will also need the help of international donors to get…
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