Dr. Darlington Tshuma

Dr. Darlington Tshuma, Ph.D. is a Researcher at the Istituto Affari Internazionali’s (IAI) Mediterranean, Middle East and Africa Programme in Rome, Italy. Previously, he served as Advisor (on secondment by the World Food Programme) to the UN Under-Secretary-General and Special Adviser on Africa at the United Nations Secretariat in New York (2024–2025). He is also an ARUA–Carnegie New York / Mastercard Foundation Early Career Research Fellow (ECR), hosted by the Institute for Peace and Security Studies (IPSS) at Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia, and previously held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Thabo Mbeki African School of Public and International Affairs in South Africa. He holds a Ph.D. from the Durban University of Technology in South Africa. His work spans various aspects of governance in Africa including colonial encounters, human rights, democracy, gender, human security, African development, African nationalism, leadership, and contemporary African politics. Some of his work has been featured in several prominent media outlets, including the UN’s Africa Renewal, South Africa’s Mail and Guardian and Daily Maverick, Italy’s Affari Internazionali (International Affairs), the Huffington Post and The Conversation Africa (TCA).