RVI Fellows and associates on politics in Eastern Africa
Tobias Hagmann and Kjetil Tronvoll’s Contested Power in Ethiopia: Traditional Authorities and Multi-Party Elections (2011) focuses on Ethiopia’s 2005 elections. The authors examine the significance of non-state actors, documenting the political strength and limitations of traditional leadership. In Getting Somalia Wrong? Faith, War and Hope in a Shattered State (2011) Mary Harper challenges common perceptions […]
RIP Charlie Grieves-Cook
Charlie Grieves-Cook, coordinator of the RVI Sudan Course 2007-2008, died in Nairobi on 3 March after leaping from a balcony pursued by armed thugs. Raised in Kenya and trained as a chef in the UK, Charlie was widely recognised in East Africa as a photographer, travel guide and creator of iconic images of Rift Valley […]
Albie Sachs at the BIEA in Nairobi, 23 November
The British Institute in Eastern Africa will hold this year's second Nairobi Annual Lecture on 23 November 2012. The lecture, entitled 'Enforcing Social and Economic Rights', will be given by Justice Albie Sachs, a former Judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa. Justice Sachs will discuss cases particularly concerning the social and economic rights […]
Textiles that talk
‘Textiles that talk’, an exhibition of kangas — East African fabrics incorporating Swahili proverbs — opens in mid-April in the RVI office at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The exhibition is dedicated to the memory of the late Nigerian author Chinua Achebe (1930-2013), who taught at Bard College for two decades.
Pastoralism and Development in Africa
On 29 April 2013, the Hon. Mohamed Elmi (MP, Tarbaj) presented a paper at the Nairobi Forum on Lessons from the Ministry of Northern Kenya, reflecting on the work of his former ministry in supporting pastoralism and development in Kenya’s arid and semi arid lands. The former minister was one of several speakers at a […]
The attack on the Westgate shopping mall
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 on the C4 site, she wrote: I lived in Nairobi for seven years back in the […]
Great Lakes Course 2012
The third Great Lakes Course was held in Bujumbura, Burundi from 7 to 13 July. The Director of Studies was Jason Stearns, also director of RVI’s Usalama Project and author of the acclaimed Dancing in the Glory of Monsters. The Deputy Director of Studies was Emily Paddon, Trudeau Scholar and Lecturer in International Relations at the University of […]
Has Kenya Destroyed the ICC?
When the supporters of Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto began systematically attacking the International Criminal Court (ICC) as a neo-colonialist institution biased against Africans in the run-up to Kenya's 2013 election, their prime concern was domestic: to ensure their champions escaped prosecution at The Hague. A publicity campaign that made clever use of social media […]
Uganda Signals Diplomatic Breakthrough With Sudan on Rebels
(Bloomberg) — Uganda vowed to expel Sudanese rebel leaders living in the country, signaling a potential thaw in relations between two African nations that in the past have accused each other of supporting anti-government insurgencies. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and Sudanese second Vice President Hasabo Abdel-Rahman agreed that “the dissidents of Sudan in Uganda should […]
The ‘other’ Kenya: A conversation with Mohammed Adow of Al Jazeera
In early January 2014, al-Jazeera correspondent Mohammed Adow was expelled from South Sudan for reporting on the anti-government advance on the capital, Juba. In December 2013, at a meeting of the Nairobi Forum, Adow discussed his recent documentary, Not Yet Kenyan, which aired on Al Jazeera English Channel on 14 November, not long after the […]