Biography

Fidelis Hove joined OPM’s South Africa office as an Assistant Consultant in August 2010. He is in the process of completing his PhD in economics through the University of Cape Town. He holds other degrees from the same institution, including a master's degree in economics awarded in 2009. Prior to joining OPM, Fidelis taught undergraduate micro- and macro-economics courses at the University of Cape Town. Fidelis has also worked with the Southern Africa Labour Research Unit (SALDRU), where he carried out qualitative and quantitative research and analysis of survey data and was involved in the KwaZulu Natal Income Dynamics Survey panels. His focus was on poverty, inequality and unemployment and one of the projects he worked on with SALDRU involved using survey data to look at poverty transitions in Vietnam and South Africa. At OPM, Fidelis has assisted with research on the potential impacts (positive and negative) of a Liquefied Natural Gas project on Tanzania’s local, regional and national economy. He has also worked on investigating the Voluntary Health Insurance industries in Australia, Slovenia and the UK. Currently, Fidelis’ interests include the use of survey data in poverty studies, the structure of informal-sector employment, social-protection issues and the economic assessments of extractive industry projects.