The author would like to extend her deep gratitude to individuals and research centres in Addis Ababa, Khartoum and Bujumbura for their hospitality and profound insights, often provided in the face of personal risk and political constraints. She would also like to thank all her colleagues at The North-South Institute, particularly Stephen Baranyi for his invaluable advice, tireless encouragement and inspiring commitment to his work, and Roy Culpeper, Bill Morton and Lois Ross for their on-going support. Thanks are also extended to Wafula Okumu and Willy Nindorera for their research advice and meticulous reading of a draft of this paper, to Thomas Kwasi Tieku for his written contributions to related published work and his early input into this paper, and to Diana Carlyle for her help throughout the research and editing processes. Thanks also go to Simona Powell, André Powell, Amy Jefferies, Cory Harris, Sam Steinberg, Tag Elkhazin and Françoise Nduwimana. Finally, the author extends her thanks to the Department of National Defence Security and Defence Forum for funding for an early phase of this research and to the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Foreign Affairs Canada and The North-South Institute for financial contributions for this research, policy engagement and project development.