In March 2017, RVI Fellow Christopher Clapham published, The Horn of Africa: State Formation and Decay, with Hurst Publishers. In the Acknowledgements, Clapham describes the role RVI’s annual Horn of Africa Course has played in developing the ideas expressed in this book….
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As part of its ongoing South Sudan Customary Authorities project, RVI, in coordination with staff and students at the University of Juba, organized an event which discussed the role of chiefs. The discussion centred around the screening of RVI’s…
Founded in 2007, the Hargeysa International Book Fair will mark it’s tenth anniversary this year. This year’s theme is connectivity, and the fair will host a delegation of renowned authors, poets, artists and academics from across Africa, including Djibouti, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria,…
RVI’s ongoing South Sudan Customary Authorities (SSCA) project is seeking to deepen understanding of the changing role of chiefs and traditional authorities in South Sudan. As part of this project, RVI has trained a team of researchers in oral history to…
The Rift Valley Institute, with the support of the East Africa Research Fund (EARF), has embarked on a major research study looking at the leadership and influence of women in politics in Kenya, which aims to map the level…
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…
RVI’s ongoing South Sudan Customary Authorities Project is seeking to deepen understanding of the changing role of chiefs and traditional authorities in South Sudan. As part of this project, RVI has trained a team of researchers in oral history to conduct…
RVI’s ongoing South Sudan Customary Authorities Project is seeking to deepen understanding of the changing role of chiefs and traditional authorities in South Sudan. As part of this project, RVI has trained a team of researchers in oral history to conduct…
The Rift Valley Institute is one of twelve non-profit organisations to be awarded an Open Society Foundation New Executive Fund grant in 2017. The grant, which is intended to assist newly appointed leaders to implement their vision for…
Selon le premier World Internal Security Police Index (WISPI) de l’année 2016 publié cette année, un index qui classe les institutions policières du monde selon quatre critères (capacité, procédures, légitimité, résultats), la Police Nationale Congolaise (PNC) de la République…
Recent Publications

Politicizing Public Events in Addis Ababa
March 26, 2025
The political landscape in Ethiopia since 2018 exemplifies how historical interpretations rooted in collective memory can shape political alignments. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali’s initial embrace of great tradition narratives clashed with the historical perspectives of his core constituency, the

Contested Urban Spaces in Ethiopia: A synthesis of case studies in Dire Dawa, Hawassa and Hosanna
March 25, 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. Ethiopia’s urban centres are the location of ongoing political

Ethiopia’s Red Sea Politics: Corridors, ports and security in the Horn of Africa
March 24, 2025
The Horn of Africa is a region marked by complex infrastructural interdependencies, where the decline and emergence of trade corridors continue to reshape the economic and political relations within and between states. This study draws on the Memorandum of Understanding