Darlington Mushongera

Darlington is a Senior Researcher and theme leader for Poverty and Inequality at the Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO). He joined the GCRO in August 2011. With a background in economics and urban planning, Darlington’s research interests span across a number of areas including poverty and inequality, governance, policy planning, and methods of measuring development. Darlington is an expert in multidimensional poverty methods and has published widely in this area. His work on governance and policy planning involves Actor-Network Theory analyses and ethnographic explorations of service delivery planning and management in South African municipalities with a particular focus on water services in the City of Johannesburg. Darlington holds a BSc in Economics, an MSc in Rural and Urban Planning, an MPhil in Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies and a PhD in Town and Regional Planning from the University of the Witwatersrand. His PhD thesis is titled 'Who governs Johannesburg Water? An Actor-Network reading of water services governance in the City of Johannesburg (2000-2018)'. Beyond his GCRO work, Darlington is the music director of a small church orchestra in Diepsloot township of Johannesburg and has a passion for changing the lives of the poor through music.