At the launch of the ‘Southern Africa Mineral Governance Barometer’ report, Rod Alence, a faculty member at the University of the Witwatersrand and an affiliate of ASC's African Social Research Initiative (ASRI) spoke about the importance of regulatory frameworks and State capacity in the mining sector.
 

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Rod Alence is one of ASRI’s International Steering Committee Members. He is an associate professor in the Department of International Relations at the University of the Witwatersrand. Prof Alence holds AM and PhD degrees in political science from Stanford University. His main interests are in the areas of political economy, African development, and quantitative research methods. His PhD was awarded the American Political Science Association’s prize for best thesis in political economy. At Wits since 2002, he has supervised two PhD theses and sixteen MA research reports, including nine distinctions and two winners of the School of Social Sciences postgraduate research prize. While on sabbatical during the 2008-2009 academic year, he was Visiting Associate Professor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he continues to serve on the advisory committee of the African Social Research Initiative. As part of that initiative, he has taught several short courses in quantitative research in Ghana. Before coming to Wits, he held positions at the University of the Western Cape and at the Human Sciences Research Council, and he spent one year as a Fulbright researcher at the University of Ghana’s Legon Centre for International Affairs.