Key Points Despite focusing the bulk of their operations on rural areas, armed groups in the eastern Congo have long-standing connections with urban centres. Technological progress, such as mobile communication, and enhanced movement, especially through motorcycle taxis, have intensified…
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.
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Since the start of 2019, a series of murders, violent robberies and kidnappings have taken place in peripheral neighbourhoods of Goma. The rapid rise in violent crime has alarmed city residents and led to calls for the local government…
Un système d’insécurité: Comprendre la violence et la criminalité urbaines à Bukavu examine le rôle des rôle des acteurs étatiques et non étatiques dans la mise à disposition d’outils pour la sécurité, ainsi qu’à la façon dont les citoyens…
Over the past two decades, urban violence in the eastern Congo has reached alarming levels, However, it has rarely made it to the forefront of international policy and media attention. Violent cities, Violent Societies analyzes urban violence through the…
- By Judith Verweijen
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Au cours des deux dernières décennies, la violence urbaine dans l’est du Congo a atteint une ampleur alarmante, cependent, il est rare qu’elle soit la priorité des politiques internationales et de l’attention médiatique. Villes Violentes, Société Violente analysent la…
Points saillants Bien que la majorité de leurs opérations se déroulent en zone rurale, les groupes armés de l’est du Congo ont des liens de longue date avec les centres urbains. Ces liens se sont intensifiés du fait du…
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…
This Usalama report by Jason Stearns et al. examines the Banyamulenge, a Tutsi community in the Eastern DRC that has been stuck in a cycle of insurgency and exclusion for over 20 years. While the last major Banyamulenge insurgency…
This Usalama Project report sketches the historical background to the proliferation of armed groups that have emerged in the North Kivu province of the DRC over the past two decades. It serves primarily to demystify the numerous factions and…
This report by Henning Tamm examines the precipitous decline in armed violence in Ituri, a district that manifests all of the Congo’s main challenges to stabilization. The report focuses on the Front des nationalistes intégrationnistes (FNI, Front of Integrationist Nationalists) and the Force…
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