Centre for Women and Gender Studies- NMU

Centre for Women and Gender Studies- NMU Advancing gender equity through research, curriculum innovation, student collaboration, and community engagement
🏆HSRC Team for Social Justice 2023 Winner

MEET THE SPEAKERSThe session “History, Meanings and Approaches of Banking on Women” will explore the origins, purpose an...
20/08/2026

MEET THE SPEAKERS

The session “History, Meanings and Approaches of Banking on Women” will explore the origins, purpose and evolving approaches of Banking on Women, grounded in WDBT’s model and its significance in advancing women’s leadership, development and economic transformation.

Dr Futhi Mtoba brings extensive experience in business leadership, governance and development, with a longstanding commitment to advancing women’s economic participation. Dr Judy Dlamini is a business leader, academic and author whose work has focused on leadership, transformation and women’s empowerment. Ms Riah Phiyega draws on her experience in public service, governance and leadership, contributing a strong perspective on women’s advancement and institutional change.

Their varied experiences will bring distinct perspectives to the conversation, connecting the history and meaning of Banking on Women with the questions of leadership, development and economic transformation that continue to shape its relevance.

A longstanding advocate for gender equality and social and economic development, Mam’Zanele Mbeki has dedicated much of ...
19/08/2026

A longstanding advocate for gender equality and social and economic development, Mam’Zanele Mbeki has dedicated much of her work to advancing opportunities for women and contributing to the development of communities.

Her leadership extends across national and international borders, focused on gender equality and development, alongside a longstanding commitment to making “poverty history.” She is the founder and patron of the WDB Trust. Her contribution has been recognised through the International Women’s Forum “Women Who Make a Difference” Award, the Ellen Kuzwayo Council Award from the University of Johannesburg, and the Kagiso Trust Lifetime Achievement Award, among others

For decades, she has brought women’s economic participation, development and social wellbeing into wider conversations about transformation. Her work continues to raise important questions about how economic systems can better respond to women’s lived realities and aspirations.

On Friday, 21 August, she will join the Banking on Women Colloquium, hosted in her honour, for an interview with Professor Pumla Dineo Gqola.

A longstanding advocate for gender equality and social and economic development, Mam’Zanele Mbeki has dedicated much of ...
19/08/2026

A longstanding advocate for gender equality and social and economic development, Mam’Zanele Mbeki has dedicated much of her work to advancing opportunities for women and contributing to the development of communities.

Her leadership extends across national and international borders, focused on gender equality and development, alongside a longstanding commitment to making “poverty history.” She is the founder and patron of the WDB Trust. Her contribution has been recognised through the International Women’s Forum “Women Who Make a Difference” Award, the Ellen Kuzwayo Council Award from the University of Johannesburg, and the Kagiso Trust Lifetime Achievement Award, among others

For decades, she has brought women’s economic participation, development and social wellbeing into wider conversations about transformation. Her work continues to raise important questions about how economic systems can better respond to women’s lived realities and aspirations.

On Friday, 21 August, she will join the Banking on Women Colloquium, hosted in her honour, for an interview with Professor Pumla Dineo Gqola.

MEET THE SPEAKERS“Development, Debt and Deconstructing Our Current Economic Frameworks” brings together perspectives tha...
18/08/2026

MEET THE SPEAKERS

“Development, Debt and Deconstructing Our Current Economic Frameworks” brings together perspectives that question how development is financed, how economic frameworks shape African societies, and whose interests they ultimately serve.

Busi Sibeko is a public finance and macroeconomic policy specialist whose work engages feminist approaches to budgeting and debt. Nombuso Mathibela works across culture, political economy, ecology, embodiment and questions of repair. Prof. Edith Phaswana is a scholar and academic leader whose work spans African development, public policy, governance and higher education transformation.

Together, these perspectives create space for a wide-ranging engagement with the economic frameworks that shape our present — and the possibilities for thinking beyond them.

As part of the Banking on Women Colloquium, the panel contributes to a broader programme examining economies, development and the conditions that shape women’s lives across the continent.

MEET THE SPEAKERSOur panel “African Feminist Perspectives on Economy/ies” brings together three African feminist voices ...
14/08/2026

MEET THE SPEAKERS

Our panel “African Feminist Perspectives on Economy/ies” brings together three African feminist voices whose work offers vital ways of thinking about power, policy and the conditions in which women live and work.

Dr. Lebohang Liepollo Pheko, Crystal Simeoni and Professor Michele Ruiters draw from fields including political economy, economic policy, development and more to think about the structural conditions that shape women’s labour and participation in their economy.

Their feminist perspectives form an important intellectual foundation for our colloquium, inviting a deeper consideration of how economies are structured, whose labour and wellbeing they value, and how policy should consider, care for and respond to the realities of women’s lives and work.

14/08/2026

Feminist Friday🥳📚

We are back with yet another Feminist read. This week we have Female Fear Factory. Acclaimed South African feminist scholar, author and SARChI Chair in African Femininist Imagination Professor Pumla Dineo Gqola examines the ways in which fear is produced, reproduced and used as a mechanism of control in women’s lives.

Through the concept of the Female Fear Factory, Prof. Gqola explores how patriarchal cultures of violence shape the ways women move through the world — influencing where they go, how they behave, what they fear and the freedoms they believe they can claim.

The book moves beyond individual experiences of violence to examine the wider systems, institutions and social practices that make fear an everyday reality for women.

Female Fear Factory is available through various bookstores in South Africa and internationally, including the UK and US, with digital editions also available.

See you next week for another Feminist read.🥳

Transitions: A Conversation on Q***r Politics, Movements and Apartheid Legacies 30 Years On brings together Jabu Pereira...
13/08/2026

Transitions: A Conversation on Q***r Politics, Movements and Apartheid Legacies 30 Years On brings together Jabu Pereira and Prof. zethu Matebeni in a wide-ranging conversation on q***r and trans politics in South Africa, three decades after democracy.

The conversation moves through the changing landscape of q***r movements and civil society, the tensions between local and global understandings of q***rness, the colonial production of knowledge, and the histories of displacement, belonging and community that continue to shape the present.

Published in the South African Review of Sociology, Volume 56, Issue 1 (2026), the article is available as an open-access publication through Taylor & Francis.

To read the full article, follow the link in our bio

***rPolitics

Meet the speakers!As part of the Banking on Women Colloquium, the session Policies and Practice: Creating Economies of C...
12/08/2026

Meet the speakers!
As part of the Banking on Women Colloquium, the session Policies and Practice: Creating Economies of Care brings together scholarship and practice to examine how care is understood, valued and organised within economic life.

Safia Khan is a lecturer and doctoral candidate in Economics at the University of Cape Town and a decolonial feminist economist. Her research examines the care economy in democratic South Africa, including women’s paid and unpaid work, homemaking, domestic work and time allocation.

Isabella Matambanadzo is a Zimbabwean feminist activist, strategist and scholar whose work engages African feminist methodologies, women’s rights, political education and the experiences of marginalised women. Her work spans research, writing, advocacy and feminist organising.

Together, their perspectives contribute to the colloquium’s broader engagement with women, economies and the possibilities for transforming economic policy and practice.

Banking on Women takes African feminist economics as a point of departure for thinking about the economy differently.The...
12/08/2026

Banking on Women takes African feminist economics as a point of departure for thinking about the economy differently.

The colloquium brings questions of women’s economic lives, care, labour, development, debt and economic power into conversation with the need for more sustainable and transformative economic futures. It also draws on the WDB Trust’s experience of building practical economic interventions with women and rural communities.

This is a conversation about not only how women participate in the economy, but what kind of economy we are building, whose realities shape it, and what becomes possible when we imagine otherwise.

Banking on Women brings African feminist perspectives into conversation with the economic realities, structures and poss...
11/08/2026

Banking on Women brings African feminist perspectives into conversation with the economic realities, structures and possibilities that shape women’s lives.

Hosted by the Centre for Women and Gender Studies (CWGS), in partnership with the Women’s Development Business Trust (WDB Trust) and the Zanele Mbeki Foundation, this Women’s Month Colloquium will explore the histories and meanings of “Banking on Women”, African feminist approaches to the economy, development and debt, women’s economy and care work, and feminist economic futures.

Join us on 21 August 2026 for a multidisciplinary conversation on economic thinking, practice and the possibilities of systemic change.

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NMU Bird Street Campus
Port Elizabeth
6001

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Monday 09:00 - 16:00
Tuesday 09:00 - 16:00
Wednesday 09:00 - 16:00
Thursday 09:00 - 16:00
Friday 09:00 - 16:00

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+27415044036

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