Franklin Pyokpung Zaure for the past six years, lectures in Theatre and Performing Arts department, Ahmadu Bello University, Nigeria with a research focus on performance design and environmental sustainability. He has four years’ experience teaching cultural and creative arts to children between the ages of three to fifteen at the primary and secondary education levels. He is a Fellow, Fulbright Visiting Research; Rise-Up Leadership Accelerator Program; https://riseuptogether.org/franklin-pyokpung-zaure/ He is a transdisciplinary researcher/artist, development communicator, an advocate for environmental justice, a climate change advocate and the founder of the Creative Arts for Development Center, a grassroot organization that leverages on creativity for social change.

I am an interdisciplinary researcher and critical urban scholar. My research revolves around urban informality, urban inclusion and exclusion, urban transformation and cities, space and power. My goal is to contribute to knowledge, public debate, policy discussions and practice around these themes. I am currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the African Climate and Development Initiative (ACDI), University of Cape Town. My current research is on Urban water adaptation: Exploring practices of adaptive governance for building urban water resilience in Cape Town’s informal settlements. I hold a Ph.D. in Social Sciences (Migration and Land Settlement), an M.Sc. in Social Ecology, and a B.Sc. in Urban and Regional Planning both from the University of Zimbabwe. I am also affiliated with the African Center for Cities (ACC) at the University of Cape Town where I teach the module – Climate Change and the City for the Masters in Sustainable Urban Practice program. I am also a former Research Fellow at the University of the Free State, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Centre for Applied Social Sciences (CASS) at the University of Zimbabwe. I have published extensively in High Impact International Journals like Urban Forum, Sustainable Development, Land Use Policy, Anthropology Southern Africa, Pan-African Conversations, Journal of Asian and African Studies, Town and Regional Planning, African Identities, and International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology, among others. My recent BOOK: “COVID-19 Lockdowns and the Urban Poor in Harare, Zimbabwe: Emerging Perspectives and the Morphing of a Sustainable Urban Future, published by Springer, Cham is available at: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-41669-9. Outside academia, I have more than 7 years experience in applied policy and development research, undertaking commissioned research and program evaluations and baseline studies on issues such as affordable housing, urban innovation, local economic development and inclusive urban economies, urban economic resilience, urban poverty and inequality (urban social geography), climate justice for marginalized populations, immigrants and racialized people’s experiences for national and local government agencies, civil society and international organizations such as USAID, FAO, CESVI Zimbabwe, Center for Affordable Housing Finance (CAHF), and Homeless International, among others. My research and professional experience spans across countries such as Zimbabwe, Senegal, Zambia, China, Germany, South Africa, Lesotho, Morocco, Belgium, Ghana, and Switzerland, among others.

Lameck Kachena is an emerging environmental anthropologist with extensive experience in socio-environmental interactions. He holds a Certificate in Climate Change and its Impacts from Brown University (USA), an M.Sc. in Social Ecology, and a BSc. in Sociology from the University of Zimbabwe. Currently, he is pursuing his PhD in the Department of Environmental and Geographical Science at the University of Cape Town. His doctoral research explores the complex socio-ecological and geopolitical dynamics at the intersection of migration and conservation within transboundary parks connecting Mozambique, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. Informed by political ecology theory and participatory methodologies which include visual art-based storytelling tools, community mapping, transect walks, ranking and scoring to understand socio-ecological dynamics associated with environmental governance and changes among diverse groups of people. Lameck has actively supported research initiatives for various international projects, including an ESRC-funded project on Transboundary Resource Management along the Zimbabwe-Mozambique Border, led by the University of Edinburgh. Between 2019 and 2022, he collaborated with scholars from Zimbabwe and the University of Edinburgh to study the impacts of Cyclone Idai on the livelihoods and well-being of communities in southeastern Zimbabwe. In 2022, he was awarded a grant by the Rufford Foundation to investigate the socio-ecological impacts of invasive alien plants in the Transboundary Conservation Area shared by Zimbabwe and Mozambique. The findings from these research endeavors have been published in prominent journals such as Conservation and Society, Geojournal, Biological Invasions, and Mobilities. More recently, Lameck co-authored a book titled “COVID-19 Lockdowns and the Urban Poor in Harare, Zimbabwe: Emerging Perspectives and the Morphing of a Sustainable Urban.” His ongoing research continues to make significant contributions to critical discussions on environmental governance, migration, and conservation across southeast Africa.