Charity Rusere

Charity Rusere is a PhD Candidate in Poverty, Land and Agrarian studies at Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), at University of Western Cape. For the studies she was awarded a DAAD in-country/in-region full scholarship as part of the Strengthening Capacities for Land Governance in Africa programme. She is a member of The Network of Excellence on Land Governance in Africa (NELGA). She is also a member of the Young African Researchers in Africa (YARA) from which she is a recipient of a grant for research that focused on the impact of Covid-19 on Zimbabwe’s vegetable production and marketing. She was also selected as one of the Right Livelihood Junior Scientists by The Right Livelihood College, University of Bonn, Germany. She has expertise in policy-oriented research, international development consultancy, project implementation, and monitoring and evaluation within the agriculture sector in which she is currently active.  She has worked as a policy-oriented researcher at Sam Moyo Institute for Agrarian Studies (SMAIAS) in Zimbabwe and as an Enterprise Development Manager at Black Umbrellas (formerly Shanduka Black Umbrellas) in South Africa. She has also been involved in development work focusing on the transformation of lives of smallholder farmers with various development organizations including Chemonics International and Adventist Development Relief Agency (ADRA). She is currently involved in small-scale farming, which she really enjoys. Her interests are in agrarian change, rural development, rural livelihoods, poverty alleviation, technology development and adoption, value chain analysis, agribusiness and gender studies. She holds an MSc degree in Agricultural and Applied Economics and a BSc degree in Agricultural Economics both awarded by the University of Zimbabwe.