SPEAKERS
In alphabetical order
Dr Abigail Osiki
Dr Abigail Osiki is a human rights lawyer and socio-legal researcher with experience working in labour rights with a focus on law and policy reform, advocacy, and program implementation. Her research background is in working poverty, non-standard forms of work, and the informal economy in sub-Saharan Africa. She is an advocate of the High Court of Nigeria and holds a PhD in Labour Law from the University of Cape Town. Abigail was formerly a postdoctoral fellow at the Fairwork Project. She currently lectures in the Mercantile and Labour Law Department at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), South Africa, and has provided technical expertise to various organisations and initiatives including the International Labour Organisation and the Initiative for Strategic Litigation (ISLA). She is also a research associate at the Centre for Transformative Regulation of Work at UWC.
Andile Zulu
Andile Zulu is the Energy Democracy Officer at the Alternative Information and Development Centre (AIDC). Andile has written on issues of political economy and social justice for a variety of local and international publications such as the Mail & Guardian and Jacobin. Andile’s work with AIDC focuses on climate justice, energy poverty, austerity, and the just energy transition. He is passionate about using popular education to deepen social and political consciousness
Angela Chukunzira
Angela Chukunzira is an activist based at the Ukombozi Library in Nairobi, Kenya. She completed her Master’s at the University of Johannesburg in 2022 with a focus on the communicative practices of social movements. She is currently conducting research on digital labour through remote workers and platform work such as e-hailing drivers in Nairobi. She has interest in how social movements are dealing with climate justice issues, digital futures, and seed sovereignty.
Assistant Professor Al-Mouksit Akim
Al-Mouksit Akim is currently an Assistant Professor of Economics within the Faculty of Governance, Economics, and Social Sciences at the Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (FGSES-UM6P) in Morocco. Before joining UM6P, he worked for the World Bank within the Social Protection and Job Department, where he was involved in numerous projects providing technical assistance to governments of developing countries. He holds a PhD in Development Economics, which he earned in 2018 from PSL Research University – Paris Dauphine University in France. His research interests include migration, structural change, financial inclusion, the distributive effect of fiscal policy, and social protection. In his research he uses applied micro-econometric and micro-simulation tools.
Dr Andrew Bennie
Andrew Bennie is the Senior Researcher in Climate Policy and Food Systems at the Institute for Economic Justice (IEJ). He has extensive background in academic and civil society research, organising, and activism. He previously worked as a researcher, organiser and popular educator with township and rural organisations, and coordinated national food justice campaigning. He has also worked in research and advocacy in the broader African food-sovereignty movement. Andrew has an MA in Development and Environmental Sociology from the University of the Witwatersrand, and a PhD in Sociology on food politics, the agrarian question, and collective action in South Africa. His research expertise are in political economy, land and agrarian studies, food systems and climate justice. He is passionate about using his capacities (including writing and photography) towards collective struggles for justice and equality.
Batlhalifi Nkgothoe
Batlhalifi Nkgothoe is a PhD student at the Global Change Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. He is also a research fellow in the Institute of Social and Economic Research at Rhodes University in Makhanda. Batlhalifi is a member of the Acaricide Resistance Management of Livestock Ticks Community of Practice under the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree from North West University, Honours and a Master's in Sociology (Cum Laude) from Nelson Mandela University. Batlhalifi’s research interests are at the intersection of indigenous foodscapes, ecological stewardship, questions around sustainability, and transformative futures.
Boipelo Bonokwane
Boipelo Bonokwane is a Programme Manager at Africa at Thousand Currents. Boipelo has previously worked for the WoMin Africa alliance, as the Pan African Research Coordinator. Prior to this she was part of the Pan Africanism Today secretariat. Boipelo has over 10 years of experience organising on Pan African matters, and has worked across sectors with grassroots formations, trade unions, and political parties. Boipelo holds a Bachelor of Arts and a pos-graduate diploma in International Studies. She is a Pan-African feminist activist who is passionate about the political and economic emancipation of the working class and the poor.
Prof. Celine Tan
Celine Tan is Professor of International Economic Law at Warwick Law School at the University of Warwick in the UK. Her research centres on exploring aspects of international economic law and regulation with a focus on international development financing law, policy, and governance. She has published on issues relating to the law and governance of the international financial architecture, sovereign debt, climate change and sustainable development, the role of international financial institutions, and human rights. Her current research includes exploring the shifting landscape of international development finance under the auspices of the New Frontiers in International Development Finance (NeF DeF) and climate finance under the Climate Finance for Equitable Transitions (CLiFT) project. Celine is a founding member of The IEL Collective, a network dedicated to pluralising, diversifying and contextualising the scholarship and practice of international economic law.
Dr Crispen Chinguno
Dr Crispen Chinguno (PhD-Wits) is a Senior Lecturer (Industrial and Economic Sociology) at Sol Plaatje University in Kimberley, South Africa. His research interrogates the embedded contestations inherent in how work is organised and changes over time. He is a National Research Foundation (NRF) rated researcher and a Department of Higher Education (DHET) Future Professor Fellow. He is an alumni of the Global Labour University (GLU) and the International Centre for Decent Work and Development (ICDD) at the University of Kassel in Germany. His work has been published in several book chapters and journals including the Review of the African Political Economy, British Journal of Industrial Relations, Global Labour Journal, the New South African Review, and others.
David Francis
David Francis is the Deputy Director at the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies and a PhD candidate in Economics at Wits University. His research interests focus on labour market economics, the informal economy, and inequality. He was the researcher for the Advisory Panel on the Minimum Wage in South Africa. He has previously worked as a development consultant, and a policy and budget analyst at South Africa’s National Treasury, where he worked in health and social policy. He has an MA in Development Studies from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, and a Bachelor of Social Sciences in Economics and History from the University of Cape Town.
Ishmael Zulu
Ishmael Zulu is a Policy Officer at Tax Justice Network Africa. He is a development economist with seven years of experience in the civil society space at national and regional level. He hosts a wealth of experience in taxation, programme management, development economics, national and regional advocacy, and policy analysis. He has contributed significantly to the uptake of tax justice, and the curbing illicit financial flows at national level across the African continent. Ishmael holds a BA Comm. with an economics major from Mulungushi University and a Diploma in Trade Policy from the National Board of Trade, Sweden. He is currently studying towards a Master's of Science in Public Finance and Taxation from the University of Lusaka.
Prof. Janet Cherry
Janet Cherry is Professor of Development Studies at Nelson Mandela University, and heads up the Transition Township research project. She holds a Master's in Economic History from UCT and a PhD in Political Sociology from Rhodes University. She is an ecosocialist feminist and activist scholar engaged in participatory action research on community owned renewable energy, as well as teaching and activism in sustainable development and social justice in Southern Africa.
Dr Jeremy Anderson
Jeremy Anderson is the Director of Just Transition and Sustainable Transport at the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), which represents 18 million transport workers in 700 trade unions across 153 countries. He leads the ITF Sustainable Transport programme, which develops worker perspectives on sustainable transport and implements just transition plans across the aviation, rail, road, and maritime transport sectors. He represents transport workers in the UNFCCC COP negotiations, focusing on climate finance. From 2009 to 2022 he was ITF Head of Strategic Research, developing leverage strategies for organising campaigns across the aviation, logistics, and maritime sectors. He holds a PhD in Geography from Queen Mary, University of London. His thesis analysed transnational organising strategies and the possibilities for bottom up international solidarity. Jeremy is from Aotearoa, New Zealand and previously worked for the service sector trade union E tū.
Julia Taylor
Julia Taylor is a Researcher on Climate Change and Inequality at the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies at Wits University. Previously, she was Researcher and Climate Policy Lead at the Institute for Economic Justice. Julia has worked on research on unemployment, sustainability consulting, and eco-education. She holds a BCom from the University of Cape Town, a PGD in Sustainable Development from Stellenbosch University, a MSc in Environment and Development from Edinburgh University, and a MCom in Applied Development Economics at Wits University. Her research interests include inequality, unemployment, feminist economics, and climate justice.
Dr Khwezi Mabasa
Khwezi Mabasa is the Economic and Social Policy Lead at Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES South Africa) and a part-time Sociology Lecturer at the University of Pretoria. He is a former MISTRA Senior Researcher in the Faculty of Political Economy. Khwezi has an interdisciplinary background and obtained his MA (Political Science) from the University of Pretoria. He completed a PhD in Development Sociology at the University of Witwatersrand focusing on a gendered analysis of South Africa’s agrarian question. Before his MISTRA employment he served as the National Social Policy Coordinator at the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and Junior Lecturer in the Department of Political Sciences (University of Pretoria). His work mainly focuses on heterodox political economy, political sociology, and labour studies.
Prof. Kanchana N Ruwanpura
Kanchana N Ruwanpura is a Professor of Development Geography at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden; and a Fellow of the Centre for South Asian Studies at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. She holds a PhD in Development Studies from the University of Cambridge, England, although she initially trained in economics for her undergraduate and postgraduate studies. Her interests are in feminism, labour, ethnicity, and the politics of development. Growing up in Sri Lanka made her acutely aware of the social injustice that comes with socio-economic, gender, and ethnic inequity; and how the status quo needs to be consistently challenged. This awareness led her to academia. Inculcating each other to be socially conscious and resist racism, fascism, and inequality is a struggle needing educational solidarity. She is keen on learning and education, which she sees as a dialectical process and as one that helps her keep faith in humanity and our common future.
Prof. Kruskaya Hidalgo Cordero
Kruskaya Hidalgo Cordero is an Ecuadorian feminist activist, researcher, and professor. She holds a MA degree in Gender Studies granted by the Central European University (CEU) and a Specialisation in Afro-Latin American and Caribbean Studies from the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO). She is an Atlantic Senior Fellow for Social and Economic Equity at the London School of Economics (LSE). Kruskaya is the co-founder of the Platform Observatory in Ecuador. She is part of the Advisory Board of Fairwork, a member of Tierra Común - a network to bring together activists, citizens, and scholars who want data to be decolonized, and the Feminist AI Research Network. Kruskaya is currently working as a field organising specialist at the Solidarity Centre in Mexico.
Dr Lesley Aidoo
Lesley Aidoo has a background in independent research and through work at Devere and the Foundation for Professional Development. She holds a Master’s in Economic and Management Research and a PhD in Energy Economics from North-West University. Her expertise is in sustainable economic development, regional electricity trading, and sustainable transition. Lesley actively encourages engagement and cross-pollination of ideas among individuals from diverse spheres, which leads to insights that enrich and enliven the tapestry of sustainable transition, bridging toward a more sustainable future.
Mbalenhle Matandela
Mbalenhle Matandela is a Board Member at the Sexual and Reproductive Justice Coalition and a consultant. Previously, she was the Deputy Director and Gender Lead at Digital Frontiers. In this role, she worked in partnership with faculty from the Centre for Sexualities, AIDS, and Gender at the University of Pretoria to build and facilitate online courses for the Gender Equality Changemakers Programme. Mbalenhle was also the Lead Consultant on Gender Equality for the AU Research Working Group based at Goldsmiths, University of London. She is an African feminist activist, a writer, and researcher. Mbalenhle’s research interests include women’s rights and Pan-Africanism, feminist education, sexual and reproductive health and rights, and child and maternal health.
uMbuso weNkosi
uMbuso weNkosi is a versatile researcher with a diverse range of focuses, including labour studies, industrial policy, economic development, agrarian studies, archives, and social theory. He has played significant editorial roles, having served as the editor of the Global Labour Column (GLC) and the South African Labour Bulletin (SALB). Currently, he shares his knowledge and insights as a lecturer in the Sociology Department at the University of Pretoria. uMbuso weNkosi has authored the thought-provoking book These Potatoes Look Like Humans: The Contested Future of Land, Home, and Death in South Africa, published by Wits Press. Additionally, he has co-edited The PhD Experience in African Higher Education, published by Lexington Press.
Dr Noncedo Vutula
Noncedo Vutula is a Chief Research Officer at the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance at the University of Cape Town, where she leads regional integration and industrialisation efforts of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) research stream on agriculture and agro-processing, climate change, and sustainable development. She has previously worked at the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development, posted as a trade negotiator for South Africa at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and served as the Chair of the Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures at the WTO. She has a PhD in Development Economics from the University of South Africa. She has interest in Africa’s regional integration and industrialisation, AfCFTA negotiations, food security and climate change, trade and gender, and global trade issues.
Dr Nonzuzo Mbokazi
Nonzuzo Mbokazi is a Research Officer at the Family Caregiving of Older Persons in Southern Africa programme in the Department of Sociology at the University of Cape Town (UCT). Nonzuzo holds a PhD in Sociology from UCT. She recently completed her postdoctoral fellowship which focused on two qualitative studies on improving the care and support for diabetes patients and HIV-positive patients who have comorbidities in South Africa with the Chronic Disease Initiative for Africa in the Department of Medicine at UCT. Nonzuzo has a strong interest in social and public policy, and is of the view that the social sciences can help us to better understand how institutional inertia affects policy initiatives, which is particularly pertinent in a developing country such as South Africa.
Ass. Prof. Norman Sempijja
Norman Sempijja is an Associate Professor at Mohammed VI Polytechnic University. He holds a PhD in International Politics (2013) from Kingston University in the UK. He has taught several courses in international relations and political science in France, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Spain, and Morocco. Norman's research focuses on, but is not limited to, international relations in Africa and its security-development-governance nexus. He is a keen researcher into inter-organisational cooperation, especially in peacekeeping and peacebuilding, with a focus on the African Union, other sub-regional bodies, the European Union and the United Nations. His teaching specialisation at Mohammed VI University is in international relations theory, contemporary issues in international relations, security governance, and African political thought.
Dr Patrick Bigger
Dr Patrick Bigger is the Research Director at the Climate and Community Project, a climate justice think-tank based in the United States. Patrick was previously a lecturer of Economic Geography at Lancaster University (UK) and holds a PhD in Economic Geography from the University of Kentucky (USA). He has written extensively about macro-economic dimensions of climate change as well as a range of financial mechanisms that, ostensibly, target the climate and biodiversity crises including carbon trading/offsetting, for-profit biodiversity conservation investing, green bonds, and multilateral development bank blended finance. His current work focuses on building the case for policies to deliver climate and ecological reparations that also contend with the Global South debt crisis.
Ronald Wesso
Ronald Wesso is the Co-Director of Beneficial Technologies (Bentec), an agency producing research and training with a broad focus on natural resource justice. He has worked at the Casual Workers Advice Office, Oxfam SA, the Surplus People Project and the International Labour Research and Information Group – all civil society organisations with movement building organisations. Ronald has been an activist in various land, community, and labour movements, and works for politics of direct action, autonomy, and mutual aid.
Rosimina Ali
Rosimina Ali is a senior independent researcher. She has previously worked as a Researcher at the Institute for Social and Economic Studies (IESE). She has a background in Development Economics from the Department of Economics at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, with which she maintains a research collaborative link in her field of work. She has been a part-time Assistant Lecturer at Eduardo Mondlane University, Department of Economics, and recently an invited member of the anonymous peer-reviewers group of the Review of African Political Economy (RoAPE). Her research interests include rethinking the realm of work in its heterogeneous, interconnected, and co-constituted spheres (productive and reproductive) through a political economy lens, with particular focus on the organisation, contradictions, and interrelations of labour markets, social (re)production, and structural transformation in Mozambique’s capital accumulation system
Dr Ruth Castel-Branco
Ruth Castel-Branco is a Senior Researcher at the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS), where she manages the Future of Work(ers) Project and lectures Theory and Methods in Inequality Studies. She holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of the Witwatersrand, a MA in Development Studies from the University of KwaZulu Natal, and a BA in Geography/African Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research centres on structural transformation, the changing nature of work, the implications for workers’ struggles and political claim making, and the redistributive role of the state and social protection. Prior to joining SCIS she worked for the International Labour Organization on maternity and social protection in Mozambique.
Safiyya Karim
Safiyya Karim is the Co-Country Coordinator at Fashion Revolution South Africa, alongside Liandra van Staden. Safiyya has previously worked at Allan Gray in the communications team. She holds a BSocSci in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics, as well as a BCom Honours in Economics, both from the University of Cape Town. She has interests in ethical and sustainable fashion, intersectional feminism, and climate change. Safiyya is passionate about transforming the fashion industry, both locally and globally, so that it is centred around people and planet.
Sihle Hlophe
Sihle Hlophe is a multi award-winning filmmaker and degree earner. Her work has been recognised with numerous accolades including a SAFTA Award and two Africa Movie Academy Award nominations. She's the Executive Producer of Passion Seed Communications, a film-driven social enterprise. Hlophe is currently directing two music-based feature-length documentaries. Past documentaries include "Medupi & The Rose Of Marapong" (15 min) "Lobola, A Bride's True Price?" (96 min), "Lindela Under Lockdown" (8 min) and "Celebrating Herstory Through Song (12 min). She's directed two feature-length TV films for Showmax, a 13-part mock-series for SABC 1 and two narrative short films "Nomfundo" and "As I Am", that have been screened at over 50 international film festivals. She's a Story Development Consultant who works with writers on both fiction and non-fiction projects. Hlophe has worked as a Lecturer at AFDA and the University of Johannesburg. She occasionally enjoys facilitating workshops for filmmakers.
Stha Yeni
Stha Yeni is an independent researcher and a PhD candidate at the University of the Western Cape. She has previously worked at the Surplus People Project, Oxfam South Africa, the Land and Accountability Research Centre and Tshintsha Amakhaya. She holds a Master's in Development Studies from the International Institute of Social Studies at Erasmus University in Rotterdam. She has interest in gender and rural livelihoods, land meanings, land reform, small-scale agriculture, and politics of the commons. She is passionate about popular education and feminist organising.
Seipati Mokhema
Seipati Bianca Mokhema is an Associate Researcher with the Future of Work(ers). She holds a BSocSc in Development Studies and an MSoc Sc in Sociology, both from North-West University. Seipati’s research interests are in higher education and employment trends for young South Africans, technological innovation’s impact on the future of work, cultural studies, as well as emancipatory social sciences research methodologies. Before joining SCIS, she worked as a Junior Researcher for the Human Sciences Research Council. Seipati co-authored "#FeesMustFall and its Aftermath" published by the HSRC Press.
Thokozile Madonko
Thokozile Madonko is currently a Researcher at the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies at Wits University managing the Public Economy Project. Using her Master's in Political Theory, she has worked in the areas of climate justice, development cooperation, public finance with a focus on health financing, gender-responsive budgeting, and national, subnational and parliamentary governance, transparency, and accountability. Over the years, she has served as Programme Manager for Heinrich Boell Foundation, coordinator of the Budget Expenditure Monitoring Forum (BEMF), and Organiser for the People's Health Movement South Africa (PHM-SA). She spent four years at the International Budget Partnership as a Programme Officer for the IBP's Zambia partnership initiative and was a Trainer/Technical Assistance Provider in their training programme. Her love for activism deepened at the Public Service Accountability Monitor at Rhodes University. Her other full-time job is parenting an extraordinary rebel girl and writing poetry while plotting a feminist revolution.