The latest rebel movement in North Kivu, known as M23, has set back hopes of peace in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. ‘The Congolese state, weak and disorganized, seems condemned to perpetual negotiations with rebels in its…
News
SEARCH
NEWS TYPES
REGION
Tobias Hagmann and Kjetil Tronvoll’s Contested Power in Ethiopia: Traditional Authorities and Multi-Party Elections (2011) focuses on Ethiopia’s 2005 elections. The authors examine the significance of non-state actors, documenting the political strength and limitations of traditional leadership. In Getting…
The election of a new president in Somalia and the expected inauguration of a new prime minister in Ethiopia have prompted RVI Fellow Sally Healy to reflect on the challenges facing Hassan Sheikh Mohamud in Mogadishu and Haile Mariam…
Sudan Looks East, co-edited by Dan Large and Luke A. Patey analyses the 'look east' policy adopted by Khartoum from the mid-1990s onwards. The book examines the rise of China, Malaysia and India and their significance in Sudan and…
South Sudan's second bookshop is now open at the Roots Project, Nimra Talata, in Juba town. Leaves bookshop is the brainchild of Awak Bior, an official at the Juba office of the European Union. The RVI, along with other…
In a blog for the London Review of Books, RVI Fellow Jérôme Tubiana describes a year of research in Sudan and South Sudan on arms flows in Sudan. ‘Tracing their origin,’ he writes, ‘might make it easier to put…
The 2000-2003 peace process in the DRC is the subject of A Sacred Cause: The Inter-Congolese Dialogue 2000-2003, written by one of the RVI’s co-founders, Philip Winter. Philip Winter was chef de cabinet to Botswana’s ex-President Sir Ketumile Masire,…
In February, at a ceremony at the White House, President Obama presented RVI US Board member Kwame Anthony Appiah with the 2011 National Humanities Medal. The citation for the award praised Dr Appiah's work "seeking eternal truths in the…
On 19 September 2012, Jason Stearns, Director of the RVI Usalama Project, which documents armed groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), gave evidence before the Congressional Foreign Affairs Sub-committee on Africa, Global Health, and Human Rights…
Charlie Grieves-Cook, coordinator of the RVI Sudan Course 2007-2008, died in Nairobi on 3 March after leaping from a balcony pursued by armed thugs. Raised in Kenya and trained as a chef in the UK, Charlie was widely recognised…
Recent Publications
Beyond the Beans: The Political Economy of Coffee in Ethiopia
September 29, 2026
A synthesis of three case studies in the Sidama–Gedeo–Guji, Kaffa–Bench-Sheko–Sheka and Jimma–Buno Bedele–Ilu Aba Bora belts SUMMARY The Ethiopia Peace Research Facility This report was written for the Ethiopia Peace Research Facility as part of its Knowledge for Peace series
The Political Economy of Coffee in the Sidama–Gedeo–Guji Belt, Southern Ethiopia
September 4, 2026
This report is part of a wider research project on the political economy of coffee in Ethiopia in the context of the political transition since 2018. It focuses on the Sidama–Gedeo–Guji coffee belt in southern Ethiopia, aiming to understand the
SHECONF 2026: International Conference on Social Sciences and Humanities
July 9, 2026
Event report On 26 March 2026, researchers, practitioners and academics gathered in Addis Ababa for SHECONF 2026, an International Conference on Social Sciences and Humanities in Ethiopia, the first of its kind convened by the Ethiopian Women Researchers Network (EWNET).