Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma

Nkosazana Clarice Dlamini-Zuma (née Dlamini; born 27 January 1949), sometimes referred to by her initials NDZ, is a South African politician, medical doctor and former anti-apartheid activist.

A longstanding member of the African National Congress (ANC), she currently serves as Minister in the Presidency responsible for Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities and is the Chancellor of the University of Limpopo.

Dlamini-Zuma was born and educated in the former Natal province, where, as a student, she became involved in the Black Consciousness Movement through the South African Students' Organisation.

Nkosazana Clarice Dlamini was born on 27 January 1949 to a Zulu family in Natal.

Her father, Willibrod Gweva, was a teacher, whose brother Stephen Dlamini was an activist in the African National Congress (ANC); her mother Rose was a homemaker.

The eldest of eight children, Dlamini-Zuma completed high school in Amanzimtoti at Adams College, a mission school attended by many ANC stalwarts.

She matriculated in 1967.

Wanting to become a lawyer but acquiescing in her father's eagerness that she become a doctor, she earned a BSc degree in zoology and botany from the University of Zululand in 1971, and then went to the University of Natal to study medicine.

Between 1976 and 1990, she lived in exile outside South Africa, primarily in the United Kingdom and Swaziland, where she practiced medicine and engaged in ANC activism.

While there, she became an active member of South African Students' Organisation, a Black Consciousness grouping, and was elected as its deputy president in 1976.

With her political activity attracting police attention, she went into exile later in 1976.

She was chairperson of the ANC Youth Section in Britain between 1977 and 1978, and in that capacity often travelled elsewhere in Europe.

After she graduated, Dlamini-Zuma worked in England for two years, at Bristol's Frenchay Hospital and Berkshire's Canadian Red Cross Memorial Hospital, while serving on the British Regional Political Committee of the ANC.

She then spent five years in Swaziland, where she worked as a paediatric officer at the Mbabane Government Hospital.

She met her future husband, Umkhonto we Sizwe activist Jacob Zuma, while embedded in the ANC underground in Swaziland.

She therefore finished her medical studies in the United Kingdom, graduating with an MBChB from the University of Bristol in 1978.

In 1985, Dlamini-Zuma returned to the United Kingdom to complete a diploma in tropical child health from Liverpool University's School of Tropical Medicine.

In subsequent years, she continued her work in paediatrics; helped found and directed the Health Refugee Trust, a British non-governmental organisation; and then returned briefly to Africa in 1989, to work for the ANC Health Department in Lusaka, Zambia.

She has been a member of the ANC's National Executive Committee since the early 1990s, and has twice campaigned unsuccessfully for leadership positions in the party: in 2007, at the ANC's 52nd National Conference, Motlanthe defeated her to win the deputy presidency; while at the 54th National Conference in 2017, she narrowly lost the ANC presidency to Ramaphosa, the current incumbent.

She returned to South Africa when the ANC was unbanned by the National Party government in 1990, signalling the beginning of the country's transition to non-racial democracy.

During the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA) negotiations in 1992, she was part of the Gender Advisory Committee.

In the transition period, she also served on the Executive Committee and Health Committee of the ANC's Southern Natal branch, and as a research scientist at South Africa's Medical Research Council in Durban.

Despite Dlamini-Zuma's history of HIV/AIDS activism, including a stint on the National Aids Coordinating Committee in 1992 and a period as Deputy Chairperson of the United Nations AIDS programme (UNAIDS) in 1995, she and her Ministry were criticised for publicly supporting Virodene, a "quack remedy" for HIV/AIDS.

Since 1994, Dlamini-Zuma has served in the cabinet of every post-apartheid South African president.

She was Minister of Health under President Nelson Mandela, and Minister of Foreign Affairs for ten years under Presidents Thabo Mbeki and President Kgalema Motlanthe.

During the first term of President Jacob Zuma, she was Minister of Home Affairs, in which portfolio she was credited with turning around a dysfunctional department.

Under President Cyril Ramaphosa, she served as Minister in the Presidency for Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, with responsibility for the National Planning Commission, before becoming Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, in which capacity she had a prominent and controversial role in regulating South Africa's lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 1994, after South Africa's first election under universal suffrage, Dlamini-Zuma was appointed as Minister of Health in the cabinet of President Nelson Mandela, where she continued the work of her predecessor, Rina Venter, in racially desegregating the health system and broadening state anti-tobacco measures.

In August 1995, the Department of Health awarded a R14.27m contract to Mbongeni Ngema, a "good friend" of Dlamini-Zuma's, to produce a sequel to Sarafina!, a popular South African musical.

Sarafina II was designed as an HIV/AIDS public awareness initiative.

However, investigations revealed that Dlamini-Zuma had misled Parliament about the source of the project's funding (which the Department had falsely said was sponsored by the European Union) and had ignored proper bidding procedures.

The play was shelved in 1996, after the Public Protector published a report criticising the project's poor financial controls and procedural irregularities.

In 1999, Dlamini-Zuma introduced the Tobacco Products Amendment Bill, which made it illegal to smoke in public buildings.

Her term also coincided with the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in South Africa.

Dlamini-Zuma served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1999 to 2009, under Presidents Thabo Mbeki and Kgalema Motlanthe.

Opposition leader Tony Leon said that her appointment was "like sending the bull into the china shop".

At the beginning of her term, in 1999, she was involved in shuttle diplomacy in the Second Congo War, mediating among factions of the Rally for Congolese Democracy and between Uganda and Rwanda.

According to Africa Confidential, she was also particularly involved in pursuing Mbeki's goal of reforming the United Nations to increase the relative power of Global South countries, and more generally she promoted Mbeki's pan-Africanist "African Renaissance" vision.

She was absent from the South African government between October 2012 and January 2017, when she served as the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, making her the first woman to lead either that organisation or its predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity.

Her tenure in that position was also controversial.