Lindiwe Zulu is the Minister of Social Development in South Africa. She is a member of the National Executive Committee and Chair of the African National Congress (ANC) Subcommittee on International Relations. 

Ms. Zulu was educated in Swaziland whereupon she joined the ANC after the 1976 student uprising. In exile, she lived in Morogoro in Tanzania, where she was offered a scholarship to study journalism in Russia. She obtained a master’s degree in journalism. 

After her studies in Moscow, Ms. Zulu  joined the liberation army Umkhonto we Sizwe. Once her military training was complete, she joined the Pan-African Women’s Organisation (PAWO) in Angola where she held several communication positions. In 1989, she was appointed Head of Communication in the ANC Department of Religious Affairs, a position she also held in the Uganda office and in the ANC Women’s League after she returned to South Africa in 1991.
 
Ms. Zulu was elected to the ANC’s team of spokespersons for South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994. After the elections, she was elected a member of the Gauteng Legislature and was appointed Deputy Speaker of the Gauteng Legislature in 1995. Four years later, Ms. Zulu was appointed the Special Adviser to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. In 2001, she was appointed Chief Director for Western and Central Africa. In 2003, she left government to join the private sector where she served as the Executive Head of Government and International Relations at Vodacom group, a mobile phone services company based in South Africa. She became the South African Ambassador to Brazil in 2004. She was elected to the ANC National Executive Committee first in 2007 and again in 2009, and elected to parliament as a Member of Parliament representing the African National Congress. After 2009, Ms. Zulu was appointed Special Adviser to the President of South Africa on International Relations. Ms. Zulu was appointed Minister of Small Business Development in 2014 and Minister of Social Development in 2019. Ms. Zulu is particularly interested in issues relating to the promotion and protection of the rights of vulnerable groups including women, children, youth and people with disabilities.