Private sector development is crucial to generating employment, stimulating livelihoods, and the provision of basic services in Somalia. Nevertheless, Somalia remains a challenging environment for most Somali and foreign investors. An analysis of market potentials and business strategy, and an understanding of local business practice is necessary. This meeting, organised by HanVard Africa and…

On Friday 7 February 2014, the Nairobi Forum of the Rift Valley Institute (RVI) convened a meeting on the new political dispensation in the Puntland State of Somalia. Speakers and participants discussed issues around transition of power, ethnicity, constitution, and border conflict with Somaliland, piracy and relations with the Federal Government of Somalia. The meeting was chaired by Mr…

NAIROBI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Kenya will not forcibly repatriate some 336,000 Somalis living in one of the world's largest refugee camps, but the government intends to continue with its plans to close the camp within three months for security reasons, a government official said. Following a major attack by Somali militants earlier this month, Kenya's Vice President William Ruto gave…

In January, RVI organised a five-day training course in the University of Hargeysa in Somaliland, for Somali researchers, on social science research methodologies. The course brought together researchers from Hargeysa, Burco, Borama, Garowe and Mogadishu involved in RVI research projects in Somaliland, Puntland and south central Somalia. They were joined by staff from the University of…

Kenya appears to have softened its stance on the imminent closure of a camp hosting more than a third of a million Somali refugees, weeks after the deputy president, reacting to the massacre at Garissa University, announced it would happen within three months.

“While we are committed to the return of the refugees, you will not see us holding them by the head and tail and throwing them…

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 Westgate attack. The documentary brought to the fore…

On Friday 4 April 2014 the Somali Red Crescent and the British Red Cross launched their case study “Principles in Action in Somalia” at an event hosted by the Nairobi Forum. The study examines the importance of the principles of the international movement of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, first agreed in 1965, in the current humanitarian environment in Somalia. The speakers shared experience…

Men in war-torn Somalia suffer high rates of drug addiction, divorce and mental illness, researchers said, urging donors to do more to support men and strengthen families….

"Men find themselves dispensable, with no meaningful role and no stake in the future," said the World Bank-funded study, based on interviews with 400 men and 90 women living in Somalia and neighbouring Kenya….…

On Monday 10 March, the Office of the European Union Commission for Somalia, IIDA Women’s Development Organization and the Nairobi Forum of the Rift Valley Institute convened a panel discussion on the EC Somalia Country Gender Profile and the Somalia Compact. The event brought together 35 women civic leaders and civil society organisations from across the Somali regions. The Gender Profile…

Development projects on the Lower Omo River in Ethiopia threaten to cause major ecological and social changes in Kenya’s Lake Turkana region. The Gibe III Dam—scheduled to start filling in May 2015— will transform annual flood patterns; and the expansion of irrigated plantation agriculture will impinge on current livelihood activities on the river and lake. These developments were the subject…