Lisa Sidambe

Lisa Sidambe is Freemuse’s Sub-Saharan Africa researcher, monitoring artistic freedom trends and developments across 46 countries. For several years, she has been a chapter author of the State of Artistic Freedom, an annual Freemuse publication that reports on challenges and threats to artistic freedom globally. In 2024 and 2025, she was the author of Nhimbe Trust’s regional reports on artistic freedom, and in 2026, she was the co-author of the African Commission’s flagship resolution on artistic freedom. As a human rights researcher and development practitioner, she has undertaken projects on freedom of expression, governance, political participation, transitional justice, cultural and creative industries, and the translation of sustainability goals into local action. She has served in two national teams in Zimbabwe, one focusing on QPR reporting under the framework of the 2005 UNESCO Convention and another on the development of the country’s music strategy.

 A Mandela Rhodes Scholar, Canon Collins Scholar, Beit Scholar and Sir John Monash Medallist, Lisa holds a summa cum laude honours in Philosophy and International Studies from Monash University, a Masters in Conflict, Development and Security from the University of Leeds, and is currently a Political Studies doctoral candidate at the University of Johannesburg. She has also done postgraduate programs in advanced human rights, public law, cultural project management, global governance and cultural diplomacy, and has also participated in UNESCO’s training of trainers in the field of artistic freedom.