Dr Muna Shifa is a post-doctoral research fellow in the Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit (SALDRU) in the School of Economics at the University of Cape Town. In 2018, she has been a visiting scholar at the Centre for the Study of African Economies at the University of Oxford.

She earned her PhD in Economics from the University of Cape Town in 2015. Her research focuses on Land tenure systems and rural livelihoods, urbanization and development, social cohesion and inequality, and the analysis of poverty and inequality.

In addition to her postgraduate degrees in economics, Dr Muna holds a BSc degree in statistics from Addis Ababa University.  She also worked as a statistician from 2003 to 2008 at the Central Statistical Agency of Ethiopia.