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.
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.
SEARCH
PUBLICATION TYPE
LANGUAGE
REGION
COUNTRY
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
- Download
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

‘THE FUEL IS US’: WATER, OIL AND DEBT ON THE SUDAN-SOUTH SUDAN BORDERLANDS
February 18, 2025
South Sudan and Sudan’s borderlands are run by a patchwork of armed authorities. Since early 2019, when opposition forces were effectively wiped out, these zones of control have remained relatively fixed, even as the war in Sudan drew close to

Conflict, displacement and children in paid work in the Sudan-South Sudan borderlands
February 17, 2025
In this blog, Manal examines the pressures forcing many displaced people, including children, to seek paid labour to supplement dwindling support mechanisms in camps in South Sudan. The author draws on her research in 2024 as part of the XCEPT

DOMINANT PATTERNS AND DYNAMICS OF URBAN CONTESTATIONS IN HAWASSA
February 12, 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. In this regard, Hawassa in Sidama region provides an