Muchapondwa, Edwin
Prof Edwin Muchapondwa
Edwin Muchapondwa is a Professor of Economics in the School of Economics at the University of Cape Town (UCT). He is a guest professor at Luleå University of Technology in Sweden.
Edwin was the founding director of EPRU at UCT in 2007, and now remains within the center as a Senior Research Fellow. He is also the former director of the UCT School of Economics.
Within the Environment for Development (EfD) Initiative, Edwin serves on the EfD board, is chair of the EfD quality assurance panel, and director of EfD International (EfD’s fundraising non-profit organization in the United States).
Edwin’s research deals with biodiversity conservation, community-based natural resource management, energy, and climate change.
A special focus of his research has been the economic questions surrounding the interaction between protected natural areas and communities living adjacent to these. Nature conservation is often not considered to be adequately people-centered. Stakeholders who regulate economies usually prioritise people-centered objectives, such as poverty and inequality reduction. Because nature conservation is not considered as being sufficiently people-centered, governments often do not allocated equal priority and sufficient resources. Edwin’s research demonstrates the economic arguments for nature conservation, showing how greater protection of nature correlates with improvements in human welfare, and provides strategies to further enhance nature conservation.
Edwin has previously served as a resource person for the Environmental Economics Capacity Building program run by the Centre for Environmental Economics and Policy in Africa (CEEPA) and vice president of the Economic Society of South Africa. Previously, he has consulted for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the African Development Bank (AfDB).
Edwin is a member of the Green Growth Knowledge Platform (GGKP) Expert Working Group on Natural Capital. He is also the country representative for South Africa at the European Association for Environmental and Resource Economists (EAERE), is the secretary general of the African Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (AFAERE)
His research has been published in international journals such as Ecological Economics, Environment and Development Economics, Environmental and Resource Economics, Journal of Development Studies, Natural Resource Modeling and World Development.
Edwin also serves as the chair of EfD’s Capacity Development Committee and is director of the EfD Collaborative Program on Climate Change and Sustainable Development (3CSD).
