Caroline Wanjiku Kihato

Global Fellow

Professional Affiliation

Visiting Senior Researcher, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg

Expert Bio

Caroline Wanjiku Kihato is a Visiting Senior Researcher at the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of the Witwatersrand and an affiliate at Tufts University. In 2011, she received a MacArthur grant on Migration and Development and spent a year as a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for the Study of International Migration (ISIM), Georgetown University, Washington DC. Her career has involved both teaching and conducting research in the academy and the non-profit sector in South Africa. Since 2006, she has worked with Urban LandMark as its southern African program coordinator. She was previously a Policy Analyst at the Development Bank of Southern Africa and a Senior Lecturer in the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of the Witwatersrand. She worked for six years as a Policy Analyst at the Centre for Policy Studies. Her research and teaching interests are migration, governance, urbanization in the global South.

Wilson Center Project

"Strengthening Local Government Responses to Displacement in Africa"

Project Summary

The project aims at building on existing knowledge of displaced populations in Johannesburg, Kampala and Nairobi to identify the mechanisms for promoting more effective local government humanitarian responses while minimizing the need for a parallel delivery mechanism. The project aims at designing an assessment tool for municipal officials and humanitarian organizations as they seek to serve displaced populations coming into and living in Africa's urban centers.

Major Publications

“Go Back and Tell Them Who the Real Men Are!” Gendering Our Understanding of Kibera’s Post-election Violence, International Journal of Conflict and Violence 9.1 (2015)

Migrant Women of Johannesburg: Life in an in-between City, 2013 Palgrave Macmillan: New York

Trading Places: Accessing Land in African Cities (co-edited with M. Napier, S. Berrisford, L. Royston and R. McGaffin. African Minds: Cape Town

Urban Diversity: Space, Culture and Inclusive Pluralism in Cities Worldwide (co-edited with M. Massoumi, B. Ruble, P. Subiros and A. Garland WWCIS: Washington DC