THE RIFT VALLEY INSTITUTE The Rift Valley Institute is a non-profit research and training organization working with communities and institutions in Eastern Africa, including Sudan and the Horn.
RVI programmes connect local knowledge to global information systems, aiming to modify development practice. They include field-based social research, support for indigenous educational institutions, in-country training courses and a digital library.
Fellows of the Institute are regional academic specialists and practitioners in the fields of development, conservation, media, law and human rights. |
 Comprendre la région des Grands Lacs - Nouveau stage d’études organisé par l’institut de la Vallée du Rift Le stage d’études sur la région des Grands Lacs, destiné au personnel humanitaire, à la force de maintien de la paix, aux chercheurs et aux diplomates, se tiendra à Entebbe en Ouganda, du 17 au 23 juillet 2010. Enseigné par des experts internationaux, ce stage résidentiel et intensif de niveau bac+3 propose une introduction au Rwanda, au Burundi et a l’est de la Republique democratique du Congo de la République démocratique du Congo. les interventions se feront soit en francais, soit en anglais, avec traduction simultanee. Comprendre la région des Grands Lacs est construit sur le même modèle que les deux autres stages sur la Corne d’Afrique et le Soudan qu’organise chaque année l’Institut de la vallée du Rift.
Pour vous inscrire, veuillez télécharger le programme ici ou nous contacter par écrit pour obtenir un formulaire. Pour en savoir plus, consulter la page Stage d'études.
Understanding the Great Lakes - A new field course from the Rift Valley Institute The Great Lakes field course is a residential programme designed for aid workers, peace-keepers, researchers and diplomats. The 2010 course will be held from 17 to 23 July in Entebbe, Uganda. The course offers an intensive, dawn-to-dusk, graduate-level introduction to Rwanda, Burundi and the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, taught by world authorities on the region. Proceedings will be in both French and English, with interpretation services available. The Course follows the same model as the Rift Valley Institute's established annual courses on the Horn of Africa and Sudan.
Please download a prospectus here or write to us for an application form. For more information please see Courses.
Elections in Sudan Sudan's new electoral system is one of the most complex in the world. National elections, due in April, have been attended by confusion and delay. An RVI report, Electoral Designs, provides the first clear guide to the electoral system and its effects on the distribution of power. The report, by Oxford University researcher Marc Gustafson, analyses government documents to reveal errors and ambiguities in the demarcation of electoral districts, and warns of the challenge these pose to the conduct of the elections. Electoral Designs is the latest in a series of studies from the Rift Valley Institute focussing on the 2010 election and 2011 referendum. They include, Elections in Sudan: Learning from Experience (2009), a historical study by Justin Willis, Atta el-Battahani and Peter Woodward, and Decisions and Deadlines: A critical year for Sudan (2010), by Edward Thomas, copublished with the IRC and Chatham House.
Internship at the Institute's London Office The London office of the Rift Valley Institute seeks one graduate-level intern. The successful applicant will assist in the management of the Institute's field research projects, training courses in Eastern Africa and the Sudan Open Archive. The minimum period of an internship is four months, three days per week. Applicants must live within travelling distance of the RVI office in London W11. For further details of the internship and the application process, please write to Jin-ho Chung, UK Administrator.
A new school in Somaliland Abaarso Tech is a newly-established secondary school in Somaliland. The school provides international-level education for outstanding students. Rift Valley Fellow Ahmed Esa, one of the school's prime movers, seeks to recruit a number of teachers to join its staff for 2010. Particularly needed are teachers of science, maths and English language, for a minimum of one year. Please write to Kiette Tucker for more details.
Books for Sudan Books for Sudan is a London University student project, launched in March 2009, designed to support the library of Juba University, in Southern Sudan. Academic books are collected in the UK and shipped to Juba, where the University recently reopened.
Field Courses 2010: Sudan and the Horn of Africa Applications are open for this year's Rift Valley Institute field courses. The Horn of Africa Course will be held from Saturday 29 May to Friday 4 June in Lamu, Kenya. The Sudan Course will be held from Saturday 12 June to Friday 18 June in Rumbek, Southern Sudan. Taught by leading regional and international specialists, the courses provide a fast-track introduction to the history, political economy and culture of a country or region, challenging assumptions and offering new perspectives on politics, development and other current issues. The courses are intensive, one-week, residential events, designed for local and expatriate peacekeepers, aid workers, diplomats, researchers, campaigners, business people and journalists. For prospectuses and further details see Courses. For application forms please write to the Horn Course Administrator or the Sudan Course Administrator
Civil Society Seminar in Juba A Juba seminar in August 2009 drew leading Southern Sudanese figures from many walks of life to discuss the relationship between state and society in South Sudan. The meeting opened with a debate between Riek Machar, the Vice-President of the Government of Southern Sudan, Acuil Malith Banggol, of the SPLM and Alfred Lokuji, of Juba University. Discussion centred on the relationship between the new state authority and Southern Sudan’s largely rural and tribal society. Dong Samuel Luak from the South Sudan Law Society gave a paper civil society and its role in holding the recently-formed Government of Southern Sudan to account on its commitments to human rights and stewardship of national resources. Priscilla Kuch of the Human Rights Committee in the National Assembly related civil society to social change in a presentation on urbanisation in the South.
The Rift Valley Messenger The current issue of the RVI newsletter contains items on current research into election history in Sudan, future RVI courses, oral history in Southern Sudan and the expansion of the Sudan Open Archive
Against the Gathering Storm - and other RVI co-publications Eddie Thomas, Director of the 2009 RVI Sudan Course, is the author of a policy paper on Sudan's political future, Against the Gathering Storm: Securing Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement (2009). Sally Healy, a member of the teaching staff of the RVI Horn of Africa Course is the author of a study of peace processes in the region, Lost Opportunities in the Horn of Africa (2008). The latter is the final paper from a series of specialist meetings jointly organised by Chatham House, the Rift Valley Institute, the Royal Institute of African Affairs and the School of Oriental and African Studies. Other publications arising from the meetings include; Ethiopia and Eritrea: Allergic to Persuasion by Sally Healy and Martin Plaut, The Rise and Fall of Mogadishu’s Islamic Courts by Cedric Barnes and Harun Hassan and Sudan: Where is the Comprehensive Peace Agreement Heading? by Sally Healy. A book based on a conference co-sponsored by the RVI was recently published by Hurst: China Returns to Africa is edited by Chris Alden, Daniel Large and Ricardo Soares.
 Improved and expanded digital library for Sudan - SOA 2.0  An expanded version of the Sudan Open Archive is now online, featuring an improved user interface and access to around a thousand books and documents about Sudan. SOA 2.0 is a searchable, full-text database that covers all regions of the country, making a wide range of material available in digital form for the first time. It contains dictionaries, human rights reports, historical material on the environment and extensive documentation of local peace meetings in Southern and Western Sudan. There are also key documents on national politics. Among the many books and reports in the Archive are The Dhein Massacre by Ushari Mahmud and Suliman Baldo, the report of the Abyei Boundaries Commission, dictionaries of Sudanese Arabic and Juba Arabic and F.W.Andrews' three-volume The Flowering Plants of Sudan. SOA 2.0 also incorporates an internet guide with links to several hundred Sudan-related websites, searchable by key words.
A school where girls come first Marol Academy is a community primary school in Southern Sudan, in Warab state. It opened in 2008 with 350 students and seven teachers. Hundreds of would-be students had to be turned away. Despite the North-South peace agreement of 2005 the new government of South Sudan has been slow to rebuild the educational system; the Marol Academy is one of a handful of functioning schools in the state. The school was founded by Dr Jok Madut Jok, an RVI Fellow born in Warab. Unusually, in a region where women have historically been excluded from education, it has more girl pupils than boys. There are over two hundred girls studying there, the result of an extended campaign to persuade local families to send their daughters to school. The Academy is, in the words of its founder, Dr Jok Madut Jok, “a girls’ school that takes boys”.
China returns to Africa China Returns to Africa, edited by Chris Alden, Daniel Large and Ricardo Soares, is based on an international conference in Cambridge co-sponsored by the Institute.
The book, published by Hurst, is a multidisciplinary examination of Chinese approaches to Africa, including papers on the history of China’s relations with Tanzania and Sudan.
Sudan local peace report updated The Institute has updated its report, Local Peace Processes in Sudan. The report offers an analytical account of the growth of “people-to-people” peace meetings in Sudan and its borderlands. The new version includes an expanded bibliography and up-dated time-chart of peace meetings over the last two decades in Southern and Northern Sudan (including Darfur and the transitional zone between North and South). Full-text versions of reports cited in the bibliography have been incorporated into the Sudan Open Archive.
Sudan Abductee Database The Sudan Abductee Database is the outcome of an eighteen-month field investigation in Bahr-el-Ghazal, Southern Sudan. A revised and updated version was made available in 2005. The investigation was designed to create a record of persons abducted during the civil war in Southern Sudan by militias operating out of Government-controlled areas of the North. RVI researchers recorded the details of more than 10,000 individual abductees.
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ON THIS PAGE | • | Comprendre la région des Grands Lacs - Nouveau stage d’études organisé par l’institut de la Vallée du Rift | | • | Understanding the Great Lakes - A new field course from the Rift Valley Institute | | • | Elections in Sudan | | • | Internship at the Institute's London Office | | • | A new school in Somaliland | | • | Books for Sudan | | • | Field Courses 2010: Sudan and the Horn of Africa | | • | Civil Society Seminar in Juba | | • | The Rift Valley Messenger | | • | Against the Gathering Storm - and other RVI co-publications | | • | Improved and expanded digital library for Sudan - SOA 2.0 | | • | A school where girls come first | | • | China returns to Africa | | • | Sudan local peace report updated | | • | Sudan Abductee Database |
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