Rift Valley Institute

H. E. Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, President of Somalia’s Federal Government, has stressed that restoration of security is his key priority. Speaking to RVI Fellow Sally Healy during an official visit to London for talks with the British government, he said that, in the short term, ‘the roads, the communities, and the markets’ should be made safe. In the long term, he added, the Somali state should control ‘the whole country, whether it’s the land, the sea, or the air: that is the ultimate security that we are seeking’. The president also discussed dialogue with al-Shabaab, saying that his government’s doors were ‘open for those who want to denounce violence and get back to the mainstream of society’. But he emphasized: ‘We have nothing to do with the foreign elements within al-Shabaab’. On the presence of outside military forces, he said: ‘This is not a sustainable project … We are expecting that old practices will be changed. We are the Somali government and we determine the type of assistance we want, and where

The Somali Kenyan MP Yusuf Hassan was a conspicuous absence at a discussion on the role of art and literature in social reconstruction in the Horn of Africa, which took place on 10 December 2012 in Nairobi. The MP was injured by shrapnel in an explosion in his Kamukunji constituency in Eastleigh, a largely Somali community in the Kenyan capital, on 7 December. His place as chair of the event, co-hosted by Kwani Trust, a Kenyan literary network, and the RVI Nairobi Forum, was filled at short notice by the journalist Katrina Manson, who subsequently wrote about the event in the Financial Times. A distinguished panel of writers from across the region included the short story writer Said Jama Hussein; Ayan Mahamoud, managing director of KAYD Somali Arts and Culture, which helps put on the Hargeisa International Book Fair; the columnist Ahmed Abbas; the Ethiopian playwright Meaza Worku; and Joseph Eluzai, a South Sudanese writer of fiction, poems, and short stories.

On 17 December 2012, Jason Stearns, director of the RVI Usalama Project, discussed the capture of Goma by the M23 rebel group and the escalation of violence in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) at a public event in London. Organized by the Africa Programme at Chatham House, in association with RVI, the event was entitled ‘M23 and the Challenges to Peace in the Eastern DRC’. The panel included Ben Shepherd, associate fellow at Chatham House and a former Director of Studies on the RVI Great Lakes Course, and Bronwen Manby of the Africa Governance Monitoring and Advocacy Project (AfriMAP). The event included a vigorous Q&A session, featured in this podcast, involving senior diplomats from the Great Lakes region. The audio recording was made by Chatham House and is also available at http://www.chathamhouse.org/events/view/187555. "The capture of Goma by the M23 rebel group marks an alarming escalation in the crisis facing the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Confusion over the nature and

On 4 December 2012, the RVI's Nairobi Forum presented the assessments of five members of the International Election Observer team who monitored district elections in the Republic of Somaliland on 28 November. They were the fifth democratic elections held in Somaliland since 2002 and followed several weeks of campaigning. The observers presenting their findings at the event, held at the British Institute in Eastern Africa, were Ayan Mahamoud of the Kayd Organisation, Steve Kibble of Progressio, Quman Akli of Somaliland Focus, RVI Senior Researcher Aly Verjee, and RVI Horn of Africa and East Africa Regional Director Mark Bradbury, who chaired the event. The audience included representatives from the Australian, Norwegian, Swedish, Dutch and Danish embassies in Nairobi. A 30-minute podcast of the event is available.

More than two hundred people attended 'A Somali Spring?', the first event of the RVI's Nairobi Forum on 11 October 2012. A 44-minute podcast featuring the highlights of the discussion between Kenneth Menkhaus, Jabril Abdulle, Amal Ismail, and Matt Bryden can be downloaded here or streamed below. The panellists discussed current developments in Somalia and the country's prospects following the election of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud. The RVI's Nairobi Forum for Research, Policy and Local Knowledge is a continuing programme that brings together researchers, policy-makers, government officials, and activists concerned with current issues in Eastern and Central Africa.