Winston Hugh Njongonkulu Ndungane was born in Kokstad, South Africa, where he completed his primary and secondary education. As an anti-apartheid activist in the 1960, he was eventually imprisoned on Robben Island from 1963 to 1966.
As a cleric in the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, he has served as a parish priest, and moved on to facilitate theological education. In later years he served in senior management of the Anglican Church until his eventual election as Archbishop of Cape Town in 1996.
While Archbishop Of Cape Town, he has served in many leadership platforms of the World Wide Anglican Communion and has made notable contributions to the work of the communion on issues of Peace and Justice, poverty eradication, trade justice and HIV and AIDS.
He has been involved with the promotion of the realisation of the Millennium Development Goals. He speaks widely on these issues as well as on rebuilding the new South Africa and theological questions. In 2005, together with Kofi Annan and Jeffrey Sachs, he was a speaker in the St Paul’s Cathedral, London, series on poverty, ‘What can one person do?’
In 2006 he launched African Monitor, a pan-African not-for-profit body harnessing the voice of the continent’s civil society in monitoring and promoting the effective implementation of promises made by the international community, and Africa’s own governments, for the continent’s development.
Njongonkulu Ndungane was appointed Chair of Council of the University of Cape Town in 2008. In October 2009 Archbishop Njongo Ndungane was awarded the Drivers of Change Award, for his lifelong commitment to place the poor at the centre of social and economic policies.
