Dr Gift Mwonzora

Research Area

Development and Socio-Economic Policies 

Short Biography

Gift is a scientific Coordinator/Post-doctoral Researcher to the Gerhard Haniel Professor of Public Policy and International Development, Prof. Achim Kemmerling. He is interested in development policy, governance, political economy, peace and conflict, environmental sustainability, urban safety, cities, the future of work and digitalisation in Africa. He holds a PhD in Sociology (specialising in Political Sociology) from Rhodes University in South Africa, B.A Honours in History and Development studies from the Midlands State University (MSU) - Zimbabwe, Certificate in Monitoring and Evaluation (M & E) from University of Zimbabwe (UZ).

He studied for an M.A in Development studies majoring in Human Rights, Development & Social Justice from Erasmus Universitiet Rotterdam (ISS) in the Netherlands. He previously held several academic positions in South African universities.  He worked as a Research Fellow in the Unit for Zimbabwean Studies – Department of Sociology at Rhodes University in Grahamstown. He also worked under the South African Research Chair in Cities, Law and Environmental Sustainability (CLES) in the Faculty of Law at Northwest University in Potchefstroom. He then worked as a post-doctoral Research Fellow in the Institute of Social Justice and Institutional Change at the University of Free State (UFS) in Bloemfontein. In 2014 he was a Visiting Research Fellow at the (VU) Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

Before joining the Brandt School, Gift worked as a Rapporteur in the constitution making process in Zimbabwe and as a trade-unionist for the General Agriculture and Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe (GAPWUZ). He also worked as a Researcher and Lecturer in Zimbabwe. He has published extensively on transitional justice, elections, comparative politics, democracy, (urban) governance and informality.