Faisal Goes West is a tragicomic drama about a Sudanese family's adjustment to life in the United States. The film is directed by Bentley Brown and produced by Rani Birchfield with a largely Sudanese and American production team and…
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On 2 November 2012, the RVI launched the first of a series of reports on the M23 and other armed groups in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), part of RVI’s Usalama Project on armed groups in…
In November Fergus Nicoll, the Institute's Publications Manager, won the Association of International Broadcasters annual radio news award for his work for the BBC covering the independence of South Sudan. In their citation, the judges wrote: 'The judges were…
RVI is seeking to recruit two new staff members for the Rift Valley Institute office in London, one entry-level position and one senior post. The successful candidates will join the RVI's small core administrative team in our London office….
Channel 4 International News Editor and RVI Trustee Lindsey Hilsum's Sandstorm: Libya in the Time of Revolution was launched in the UK in April to a chorus of praise from reviewers. It traces the history of Gaddafi’s long regime…
A two-day series of lectures was held in Juba on 2 and 3 June 2011, in the run-up to the independence celebrations in South Sudan. The theme of the lectures – the second in an annual series – was…
Taghreed el-Sanhouri’s documentary Our Beloved Sudan (2011) portrays Sudan from independence in 1956 to partition in 2011. Expanding on some of the themes of Taghreed's earlier All About Darfur (2005) the new film includes interviews with prominent northern and…
The recent RVI Usalama Project report on the origins and activities of the M23 rebel group in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), From CNDP to M23: The Evolution of an Armed Movement in Eastern Congo, was featured…
The new hostilities between Sudan and South Sudan have generated renewed interest in two RVI publications: Douglas Johnson's When Boundaries Become Borders and Eddie Thomas' The Kafia Kingi Enclave. The books offer the most detailed available account of border…
The Sudan Volunteer Programme (SVP) is a London-based charity that has been sending volunteers to teach English in Sudanese universities for the past 15 years, SVP has a number of placements open, due to start in August 2012. Volunteers…
Recent Publications

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).

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