An Interview With Dr. Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka

The Vision, Work and Triumphs

By Fiona Wakelin & Koketso Mamabolo

The truly great leaders carry with them an aura and gracefulness that points to a clear and refined perspective on what it is to give your life to others. For them, where we need to be as a society and where we are now is separated only by the work that needs to be done and the passion that must go with it.

For the great leaders it is about a grand vision encompassing the simple truths and goals which we have the tools to reach. They themselves are conduits for the work and passion of the people who they lead and inspire, giving breath to the words of American writer and poet June Jordan, who presented Poem for South African Women at the United Nations on the 9th of August 1978, commemorating the tens of thousands of women who marched with passion to the nation’s capital in the winter of 1956.

“We are the ones we have been waiting for,” wrote Jordan. The vision, work and triumphs of Dr Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka suggests that indeed we are the ones we have been waiting for. The ones who see mountains which can be moved, the ones who know they can write their own stories.

“If the world has to change and change significantly, that has to go within the significant representation of women, so that women can also make their contributions and, in the process, actually save the world,” says Dr Mlambo-Ngcuka, speaking to Top Women Leaders.

Her own contributions both in South Africa and the world speak for themselves. She began her term in government as the Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry in 1996, before serving as the Minister of Minerals and Energy until she became the first woman in the country’s history to serve as Deputy President (2005 - 2008).

In 2013 she was appointed as Under-Secretary General and Executive Director of UN Women, a position she would hold until 2021, the same year she was awarded a Standard Bank Top Women Lifetime Achievement award. The Chancellor of University of Johannesburg has dedicated her life to carrying the torch for gender equality, education and the promotion of human rights and social justice.

Bringing Women Together

Women want the best for their communities, says Dr Mlambo-Ngcuka. She explains that gender inequality affects women regardless of their background, that there is more that unites them than divides them.

“I almost feel that even women from different organisations or political parties, they have to get out of those boxes and find a way of holding hands across those boxes so that together they can address these issues that impact on them as women, irrespective of where they are coming from.”

She describes how challenging the process of advancing gender equality has been.“In Beijing, in 1995, we had about ten countries that had formidable policies or legislation that were addressing gender equality. It was still very hard to convince countries. And at the time when I got to the UN, they were still struggling,” she says.

But there has been progress on the legislative front worldwide. Implementation varies but as she explains, by the time she left the people working to address gender-based violence had frameworks to with.Progress was also made on engaging young women, working to bridge generational gaps to bolster efforts towards gender equality..

“We worked hard to make sure that young women, and young people in general, had a voice in the fight for gender equality, both about their aspirations and about the difference they could make in helping to push the struggle for gender equality forward. And now I’m glad to see that there are so many organisations that have really young women in leadership and that the contributions that young women make are respected and taken seriously. It helps that we have so many young people who know their story.”

She highlights the difference in approach between young people and the older generations, with the former at times bringing what she describes as a “radical anger”.

“You need this radical approach to issues which young people bring so forcefully to the struggle for gender equality. And then the one other area which is also important for me, which I worked very hard on, was bringing men into the space of gender equality,” she explains, speaking about the HeForShe movement, which helped focus on the influence men with power and authority have, and the impact they could make promoting gender equality.

Like Madiba, she sees hope as another key tool in the arsenal of change. The movement’s partners represent more than 600 million citizens, with 2 million activists in a community which continues to grow.

Preparing The Next Generation

Dr Mlambo-Ngcuka’s passion for gender equality is matched by her passion for education, which is a reflection of the value she places on supporting the youth as drivers of change.

“Young people give the world another opportunity to renew itself. Because in every generation that’s what you get, right? Every generation brings with it it’s own circumstances and it’s own approach to how they are going to navigate their circumstances and how they look at the future,” she says, reflecting on the journey from teaching to working for World YWCA, coordinating it’s programme for young people, and starting TEAM, a developmental organisation in Cape Town “that focused on empowering women in informal settlements.”

Born in KwaZulu-Natal, she was a lecturer at the Mpumalanga Teachers Training College and taught at the same high school she matriculated from, Ohlange High School, after obtaining a Bachelor’s degree in Social Science and Education from the University of Lesotho.

A life-long learner, she completed a PhD in Education and Planning at Warwick University, after a MPhil in Education and Planning from the University of Cape Town. Honoured as the Hauser Leader at Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership, and the recipient of the Vanguard Award from Howard University, she has a long list of honorary doctorates from Witwatersrand Technikon (2003), University of the Western Cape (2007), Nelson Mandela University (2014), University of Fort Hare (2016), University of the Witwatersrand (2019), Rhodes University (2020) and most recently from the University of the Free State (2024).

The Umlambo Foundation is a return to her education roots. Founded in 2009, the end of her tenure as Executive Director of UN Women saw the foundation’s work being ramped up. Its flagship project is in the Vhembe district of Limpopo, working with dozens upon dozens of schools including leadership training for principals, scholarships and digital upskilling and literacy programmes. In particular, they have been working with teachers to ensure that they are well trained and able to provide the best possible education in mathematics, physics, accounting and technology.

She shares the same respect for the power of education as one of her favourite authors, former President Nelson Mandela, whose writing she believes is an example of how reading can connect people to places they have never been before. She references one of his most well-known statements: “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

“Because education is something that can never be taken away from you once you have it,” she explains to Standard Bank Top Women Leaders. “For me, this is what makes education so important. It is never a wasted intervention. They can go everywhere. This will always be with them.”

And like Madiba, she sees hope as another key tool in the arsenal of change. “If you have hope, you will have energy, to fight for the next chapter, to work for what’s next. We cannot afford to lose hope,” she says.

“But I must also say, hope is not a strategy.” She herself is working more strategically, using her time carefully, finding a balance and seeing where she can make the most impact.

“Our own shadows disappear as the feet of thousands / by the tens of thousands pound the / fallow land / into new dust that / rising like a marvellous pollen will be / fertile,” wrote June Jordan, about the winter of 1956 when Dr Mlambo-Ngcuka’s predecessors would set the tone for the coming generations of women who would make their contribution to changing the world. This new dust is filled with the voices of the young women who she has worked to support and inspire - a “marvellous pollen” rising above the clouds of the past into a prosperous, “fertile” future.