 |
Professor Vishnu Padayachee is Research Professor , Head of the School of Development Studies and Acting Director of the Centre for Civil Society at the University of KZNatal. Before joining Natal University in 1997 he was a Research Professor in the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Durban-Westville. For two years in the early 1990s he was seconded to the office of the Vice-Chancellor of UDW where he played a leading role in that university’s transformation and restructuring process.
Professor Padayachee has a PhD from the University of Natal in Economics and Economic History. He has authored or edited five books, written over 20 chapters in books and published some 50 articles in academic journals including, among the major international ones, World Development, The Journal of International Development, Metroeconomica, The International Review of Applied Economics, The Cambridge Journal of Economics, Revue Tiers Monde, and Comparative Studies in Society and History. His research covers a variety of disciplinary fields, including Macroeconomic policy for developing countries: Finance, Banking and Monetary Policy: Development Economics: and Political Economy. His latest books (2002) include “(D) urban Vortex” (with Bill Freund) and “Blacks in Whites: A Century of Cricket Struggles in KwaZuluNatal” (with Ashwin Desai, Krish Reddy and Goolam Vahed). He serves on the editorial boards of World Development and Interventions: The Journal of Post-colonial Studies, among other journals.
He has held visiting fellowships in Europe and the USA, including the Paul H Nitze School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University; the Christian Michelsen Institute in Bergen, Norway; and Robinson College and the Judge Institute of Management Studies both at Cambridge University. He also held a (part-time) three-year appointment as Visiting Professor in the School of Management at Birkbeck College, University of London until February 2004. He is currently a Senior Associate of Cambridge University's African Studies Centre, an Associate Member of the Social Policy Department at Oxford University.
In January 2002, Professor Padayachee was appointed to the Headship of the School of Development Studies. At the same time he was promoted to Professor (Post Level 7). The main criteria for promotion to level 7 Professor is that the candidate should have a high standing in his/her discipline (judged, amongst things by an outstanding and sustained publications record) and that he/she demonstrates service to the university and wider community, including exceptional service in areas which bring honour to the University. In 2003 he was made a Fellow of the University of Natal, a life-time award, for distinguished service to the University.
Professor Padayachee has served both as a researcher and a senior member of the governance committees of various national research organisations and networks concerned with economic policy issues since the mid-1980s. On 1 April 1996, the State President appointed him to the Board of Directors of the South African Reserve Bank. In September 1999 he was re-appointed for a second term, and is now into his third term. He serves on both the Audit and Remuneration Committees of the SARB Board. He is also Deputy-Chair and a member of the Board of Directors of the Ithala Development Finance Corporation, and chairs its Banking License sub-committee. From August 2002 to June 2003 he served on the Board of Directors of Cricket South Africa (Pty) Ltd In October 2002, Professor Padayachee was appointed to the Board of Directors of the Dube Trade Port (Pty) Ltd, the logistics gateway company that will oversee the development of the new trade and passenger airport and Industrial Development Zone near La Mercy.
In 1988, he assisted his close friend, the late Ike Mayet, in establishing Ike's Bookshop. In October 2000 he and a colleague Professor Julian May bought Ike’s Bookshop, specialising in Africana and Antiquarian books, and moved it onto the top floor of a beautiful listed building in Durban's trendy Florida Road area. He is also an Honorary member of the California-based Ethnic Arts Foundation.
|
