School of Built Environment & Development Studies

Dr Muzi Matse is a Senior Lecturer in the discipline of Community Development and teaches Community-based Learning, Issues in Community Development, Principles of Community Development and Systems and Processes in Community Development. He obtained both his PhD in Public Health and a Postgraduate Diploma in Medical History from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. Dr Matse has further qualifications in public health: Masters of Public Health (MPH) and Postgraduate Diploma in Health Management from the University of Witwatersrand. His PhD thesis was entitled: “A history of disease and medicine in Swaziland, c.1870-1993”. He sits on various local and national community development organizations as a board member and before joining UKZN, Dr Matse was the community development component manager and project manager at the Health Systems Trust (HST), a national research and intervention think tank that facilitates health systems development through research and information dissemination to influence both policy and practice to improve quality of care in priority health programmes through facilitating supportive interventions and sharing ‘best practice’ for the empowerment of community health service users in all provinces of South Africa. His work at HST included conducting community development and health systems research capacity development work that developed national data collection and M&E tools to be used by community health workers at the household level. A proponent of interdisciplinary praxis, Dr Matse’s work in community health uptake and community health promotion and prevention also ensured that community engagement practices are at the center of research and intervention work through development of methodologies that centered community dialogues as key in engagement efforts between the national Department of Health, social cluster government departments, and community beneficiaries nationally.