The Rift Valley Institute’s annual field courses will be held in East Africa in June and July 2015. Course applications are now open. Please apply online here. Locations of courses will be confirmed in early 2015. Taught by teams of leading regional and international specialists, the three courses—now in their twelfth year—provide the basis for an understanding of current political and…

The fifth Horn of Africa course took place in Kilifi on the Kenyan coast from 16 to 22 June 2012. The directors, Mark Bradbury and Ken Menkhaus, were again joined by Sally Healy as Deputy Director of Studies. Lectures were held, for the first time, at Pwani University College, where Deputy Course Director Hussein Mahmoud is a lecturer. Lecturers new to the course included Markus Hoehne, Mehari…

The first RVI Great Lakes Course was held in July 2010 in the Imperial Golf View Hotel in Entebbe, Uganda. The Director of the Course was Philip Winter OBE, formerly Chief of Staff for the Inter-Congolese Dialogue and one of the founders of the Rift Valley Institute. The Director of Studies was Jason Stearns of Yale University, formerly Co-ordinator of the UN Group of Experts on the DRC. Among…

The ninth course covering Sudan – and the first to cover the new nation of - was held in Athi River, Kenya from 26 May to 1 June. The course was under the direction of two of the co-editors of recently-published The Sudan Handbook (2012): Justin Willis, of the University of Durham, and Jok Madut Jok, of Loyola Marymount College, Los Angeles, currently seconded to the Ministry of Culture, Youth…

The RVI annual field courses feature teaching teams composed of regional specialists drawn from the region itself and from Europe and America. The most recent additions include Laura Hammond and Berouk Mesfin on the Horn of Africa course, Judith Verweijen and Jean Omasombo on the Great Lakes Course and Aly Verjee and Nada Mustafa Ali on the Sudan and South Sudan Course. The field courses take…

The second Great Lakes Course was held in Bujumbura, Burundi from 9 to 15 July. The course was directed by Jason Stearns of Yale University, author of the recent Dancing in the Glory of Monsters, and Ben Shepherd, former Great Lakes specialist at the UK Foreign Office. New teaching staff this year included Filip Reyntjens, Mvemba Dizolele, Koen Vlassenroot, Mathilde Muhindo, Pascale Kambale…

The RVI’s 2015 annual field courses began in June in Naivasha, Kenya, in the heart of the Great African Rift Valley. The courses, now in their twelfth year, started with the Horn of Africa Course, which took place from 13 June to 19 June. The Great Lakes Course takes place from 27 June to 3 July, and the Sudan and South Sudan Course from 11 July to 17 July. 

RVI courses are intensive,…

The Rift Valley Institute’s annual field courses will be held in East Africa in June and July 2016. Course applications are now open. Taught by teams of leading regional and international specialists, the three courses—now in their thirteenth year—provide the basis for an understanding of current political and developmental challenges in the Horn of Africa, the Great Lakes, Sudan and South…

The course was held under the direction of Justin Willis of Durham University. Dan Large of the Central European University was the Deputy Director of Studies. The teaching staff included Magdi el-Gizouli of Freiburg University, Joanna Oyediran, Sudan Program Officer of the Open Society Initiative for Eastern Africa, and Douglas Johnson, author of The Root Causes of Sudan's Civil Wars. Also…

The Great Lakes Course covered Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The 2013 course examined the current crisis in the Kivus, the prospects of institutional reform in the DRC, and political developments in Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda. The course was in English and French with simultaneous translation. It was held in Jinja, Uganda, from 22 to 28 June 2013. The…