Liz Hodgkin, RVI Fellow and former Amnesty International Sudan researcher, is teaching at St Augustine’s School in Isoke village, Eastern Equatoria, South Sudan. This is her first letter from Isoke. Other letters: No 2 October 2012, No 3 November…
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Berouk Mesfin, Senior Researcher at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), interviews Christopher Clapham, Emeritus Professor at the University of Cambridge, and Lee Cassanelli, Associate Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania, on the topic of a life…
On 18 April, the Nairobi Forum, in partnership with Kwani Trust, hosted an evening with renowned Somali author Nuruddin Farah. Nuruddin is winner of the Neustadt International Prize for literature and the Lettre Ulysses Award, and has been nominated for…
The life of the Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe (1930-2013) was celebrated on 6 May 2014 at Bard College, New York, where Achebe taught for many years. There were spoken tributes from Nigerian author and art historian Teju Cole, from…
More than two years after Sudan’s southerners voted for a country of their own, some people in lands along the new border with the old rump Sudan remain in limbo. Acuil Akol comes from Abyei, a triangle of contested…
Fellows and associates of the Institute responded in online and broadcast media to the attack by al-Shabaab on Nairobi's Westgate shopping mall. RVI trustee Lindsey Hilsum reported from Westgate for Channel 4 News, where she is International Affairs Editor. In an article…
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,…
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…
A story in the Guardian about southern Sudan's dilapidated archives and the restoration effort spear-headed by the Rift Valley Institute This is our archive," Youssef Fulgensio Onyalla says wistfully as he pulls back the tarp covering the metal door and opens…
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