Secretary-General Appoints Mojankunyane Gumbi of South Africa Special Adviser for Addressing Racism in Workplace

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres announced today the appointment of Mojankunyane Gumbi of South Africa as Special Adviser for Addressing Racism in the Workplace.

The Special Adviser will provide strategic advice to the Secretary-General on addressing racism and racial discrimination, as well as oversee the implementation of the long-term Strategic Action Plan adopted by the Organization in 2022 to address racism in the workplace.  Following the adoption of the Strategic Action Plan, every Secretariat entity was asked to develop and implement its own action plan, while an Implementation Steering Group under the leadership and stewardship of the Special Adviser will monitor and guide corporate-level actions to implement the Strategic Action Plan.  An Anti-Racism Team has been established to support the Special Adviser. 

Ms. Gumbi is currently Chancellor of the University of Venda, a position she was appointed to in 2020.  She is the founder of Mojanku Gumbi Advisory Services, a Johannesburg-based business advisory firm.  From 2018 to 2019, she served as Ombudsman of the University of Johannesburg.  She was a Special Adviser to South Africa President Thabo Mbeki from 1999 to 2008.  From 1994 to 1999, she was an Adviser to then Deputy President Mbeki in the Mandela Administration.  She was involved in peacemaking initiatives in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Comoros, Sudan, Lesotho, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Iran and the Middle East.  Prior to serving in the presidency, Ms. Gumbi was an attorney from 1984 and an advocate from 1993.

Ms. Gumbi holds law degrees from the South African Universities of the North (now University of Limpopo) and Witwatersrand, and a certificate in trial advocacy from the University of Texas in Austin.