Mandipa Ndlovu

Mandipa Bongiwe Ndlovu is a PhD candidate at the African Studies Centre Leiden under the Leiden University-University of Edinburgh Partnership. She is also a research analyst and policy consultant. In March 2022 she was appointed to the Ibrahim Index of African Governance youth advisory council.

Her PhD project is entitled ‘Urban Governance and Bulawayo's Political Economy in Independent Zimbabwe’. Unpacking nuanced metanarratives from 1980-present, the project interlinks the legacies, realities and futures of industrial development to civil-military relations which underpin counter-urbanisation trends and policies in Zimbabwe’s second largest city. Locating this discussion within the current precarity of Zimbabwe’s young working-age population, Mandipa seeks to expose avenues towards sustainable socio-political, as well as economic futures for this demographic.

Keywords: urbanisation, militarisation, civil-military relations, youth empowerment, gender justice, political economy, sustainable African governance, African development, trauma and memory, transitional justice.