Paul Munro

Paul Munro is a Scientia Associate Professor in Human Geography in the School of Humanities and Languages at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), where he convenes UNSW’s Environmental Humanities and Geographical Studies majors. He is also currently a visiting research fellow at the Maria Sibylla Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa (MIASA), University of Ghana (September to December 2020), as a part of the Interdisciplinary Fellows Group working under the theme “The Governance of Energy Transitions in the Global South.”

Paul has an established research record in the fields of political ecology and environmental history and has written extensively on forest governance and energy justice, with a particular geographical focus on Sub-Saharan Africa. His current research is focused on the changing geographies of energy poverty: developing an understanding how the emergence of new technologies, new trade dynamics and financial platforms have reshaped how people realise their energy needs in poor rural and urban settings. He is currently engaged with research projects in Uganda, Kenya, Ghana, Malawi and Vanuatu. Theis includes a 3-year project funded by the Australian Research Council’s (ARC) Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) examining the social, economic and political dimensions of Africa’s photovoltaic turn.

Prior to his work in academia, Paul co-founded Energy For Opportunity (EFO) in 2009 in Sierra Leone, an organisation dedicated to the dissemination of renewable energy. Since its foundation, EFO has been involved in over 200 renewable energy installation projects across the West African region.