DLAMINI-ZUMA, NKOSAZANA (née Dlamini, born 27 January 1949), South African politician and anti-apartheid activist who became the first female leader of the African Union. Dlamini-Zuma was raised in the eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal and educated at the University of Natal, where she studied medicine and was active in anti-apartheid causes, thereby attracting the attention of the authorities. As a result, she chose to continue her studies in exile in the United Kingdom, where she attended the universities of Liverpool and Bristol while continuing her agitation from overseas.
Dlamini-Zuma finished her medical studies at the University of Bristol in 1978 and worked for two years in English hospitals while serving on a British committee for the African National Congress, an anti-apartheid political party banned in South Africa. She then worked in a hospital in Eswatini, known as Swaziland at the time, for five years before returning to the United Kingdom for additional medical accreditation. She moved back to South Africa in 1990 once the ban on the ANC had been lifted and the country began its transition from apartheid to democracy.
In 1994 newly elected president Nelson Mandela appointed Dlamini-Zuma minister of health, and she set about transforming the segregated apartheid-era medical system. In the course of her five-year tenure she wrestled with the nascent HIV/AIDS epidemic, oversaw the legalization of abortion, and banned smoking in nightlife venues. She was heavily criticized, however, for embracing a controversial HIV medication that later proved to be entirely ineffective.
In 1999 Dlamini-Zuma became minister of foreign affairs, engaging in shuttle diplomacy to attempt to end the Second Congo War, and in 2009 she was named minister of home affairs by her ex-husband, President Jacob Zuma. She then campaigned to become chair of the African Union Commission, emphasizing her plan to improve the organization and efficiency of the pan-African bloc. She was elected in 2012, becoming the first woman to occupy the position. Though she was credited with instilling a heightened professionalism in the ranks as well as increasing women’s representation in the AU, she was unpopular with fellow officials owing to a perceived absenteeism and aloofness.
Since 2017 Dlamini-Zuma has served as South Africa’s minister of women, youth, and persons with disabilities.