South Africa’s Deputy President Ramaphosa to give Inaugural lecture
Mr Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa, Deputy President, South Africa, will give the Inaugural lecture on Thursday, 3 December, at 17:30, launching the 46th Union World Conference on Lung Health in Cape Town.
In his speech, “Turning the Tide Against Lung Disease in South Africa”, Deputy President Ramaphosa will lay out an agenda for ending tuberculosis in South Africa within the forthcoming era of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Deputy President Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa is a native of Johannesburg. He studied at the University of the North in 1972, where he became involved in student politics, joining the South African Student Organisation (SASO) and the Black People’s Convention (BPC).
In 1974, Mr Ramaphosa was detained for organising pro-Frelimo rallies that were held to celebrate the independence of Mozambique. He was detained for the second time in 1976 following the Soweto student uprising.
He became the first general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers in 1982. In 1991, he was elected African National Congress (ANC) Secretary General and subsequently became head of the ANC team that negotiated the transition to democracy. Following the country’s first democratic elections in 1994, he was elected chairperson of the Constitutional Assembly, which wrote South Africa's new democratic constitution.
In December 2012, Mr Ramaphosa was elected Deputy President of the ruling African National Congress and, on 25 May 2014, President Jacob Zuma appointed him as Deputy President of the Republic of South Africa.
For complete details about the Inaugural Session