On 6 September 2017, the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management of the Federal Government of Somalia, in collaboration with the UK Department for International Development (DFID), the Office of the Deputy Representative of the UN Secretary General,…
RVI publishes books, research reports, research papers, briefings and meeting reports in a range of formats. Publications cover policy, research, arts, culture and local knowledge in the countries of eastern and central Africa. Research publications—books, reports and papers—are peer-reviewed. Some RVI publications are also available in French and/or Arabic.
The RVI is a signatory of the Budapest Open Access Initiative (2001); all publications are free for download in PDF format under Creative Commons licences. The views expressed in books and reports published by the RVI are those of the authors, not the Institute.
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Kenya’s 2010 Constitution introduced a quota system designed to increase the representation of women in elective and appointive bodies of government. Article 27(8)—known as the Gender Principle—states that ‘not more than two thirds of the members of elective bodies…

- By Michel Thill, Robert Njangala, Josaphat Musamba
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Depuis les années 1990, le concept de Réforme du secteur de la sécurité (RSS) fait partie intégrante des programmes de reconstruction post-conflit, de rétablissement de l’autorité de l’État et de développement. En République démocratique du Congo (RDC), la réforme de…

- By Multiple Authors
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South Sudan’s political culture, including its current civil war, is international. This is due to the country’s history of mass migration and displacement, particularly during the last two civil wars from the early 1960s. By the end of the…
Security sector reform has been a central component of post-conflict reconstruction and development programmes, and the restoration of state authority since the 1990s. However, these reforms have rarely been successful in the long run. In the DRC, police reform has…
The Rift Valley Institute’s Rural to urban mobility project aims to better understand the dynamics of rural to urban migration and the ways in which this phenomenon impacts the social and infrastructural fabric of cities in East Africa. It is conducted…
The Rift Valley Institute’s Rural to urban mobility project aims to better understand the dynamics of rural to urban migration and the ways in which this phenomenon impacts the social and infrastructural fabric of cities in East Africa. It is conducted…
The Rift Valley Institute’s Rural to urban mobility project aims to better understand the dynamics of rural to urban migration and the ways in which this phenomenon impacts the social and infrastructural fabric of cities in East Africa. It is conducted…
South Sudan’s civil war has spread across the country, fuelling economic collapse and food shortages, and sending millions of residents fleeing across its borders. Although the former Northern Bahr el-Ghazal State has escaped the worst excesses of the current…
Recent Publications

Digital Governance and Security in the Horn of Africa
March 28, 2025
While digital finance—including mobile money—has developed unevenly across Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya, such technologies are nevertheless transforming everyday economic activities. In some cases, borderlands and cross-border financial flows are central to these digital developments and are driving further innovation. From

Legally Informal: Women, conflict and cross-border trade in the Mandera tri-border area
March 28, 2025
In the Mandera triangle—a pastoralist region encompassing the point at which the borders of Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia meet—the reality of local and cross-border trade often diverges widely from official state policies of control. This disjunction has created a grey

Making Sense of Borderlands
March 27, 2025
This think piece is an extract of a longer paper taking stock of the roughly 40 X-Border studies carried out between 2019 and 2025 under the auspices of the Rift Valley Institute’s XCEPT programme. If we are to fully grasp