Beth Chitekwe-Biti

PhD Development Policy and Management 2013

Since graduating, Beth has re-joined Dialogue on Shelter Trust, a non-governmental organisation she set up in the late 90s, as its Executive Director.

Dialogue on Shelter Trust works with landless and homeless communities in towns and cities in Zimbabwe to create voice and address tenure and service delivery issues. The trust works in partnership with an autonomous network of slum dwellers, the Zimbabwe Homeless People’s Federation. Together the two organisations form the Zimbabwean affiliate to the global network of slum dwellers Slum Dwellers International.

Dr Chitekwe-Biti has maintained her research interests in how the urban poor change city form and function. She has linked research on urban sanitation with innovations in sanitation solutions being piloted by the Zimbabwean Federation, as part of the Sanitation Hygiene Applied Research.

She also provides liaison between the Dialogue on Shelter Trust and three universities in Zimbabwe linking planning education with the practical challenges in towns and cities in the country. This has led to the development of practical learning workshops for planning, engineering and architectures students within informal settlements working alongside slum dwellers to develop solutions to a variety of challenges in a collaborative manner.