Johnnesburg:  One of former president Thabo Mbeki's most trusted lieutenants, Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, the former minister of public service and administration, has landed a top job with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).  Fraser-Moleketi, who resigned in September following the recall of Mbeki by the ANC, will join the UNDP as head of its democratic governance unit responsible for promotion of the organisation's goals in 140 countries across five regions.
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"My heart is very much in South Africa but the job is based at the UN in New York so my contribution as a patriot will be on a global level," she told The Sunday Independent.  She will be joining the UNDP at the level of assistant secretary-general, having also been asked to consider a posting as the organisation's director for Africa.
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"This was a bigger and much more interesting challenge, and it also involves work in Africa through the offices in Johannesburg and Dakar," she said.
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After completing her primary school education in Wynberg, Cape Town, Fraser-Moleketi attended the Livingstone High School at Claremont where she served on the students' body before enrolling at the University of the Western Cape.  She made her mark as a community leader and was briefly detained before joining the ANC and leaving the country to go into exile.
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In July 1990, she returned to South Africa at the request of the South African Communist Party to help set up national legal structures of the SACP and work towards the relaunch of the party.  Between July 1990 and the end of 1992, she served as national administrator for the party and was personal assistant to Joe Slovo and Chris Hani, successive general secretaries.
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"This will be a much bigger challenge than anything I have attempted but I am looking forward to making an impact on a scale beyond what I could imagine," she said.
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The UNDP is the UN's global development network, an organisation advocating change and connecting countries to knowledge, experience and resources.  World leaders have pledged to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, including the overarching goal of cutting poverty in half by 2015.
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Fraser-Moleketi was appointed as deputy minister of welfare and population development in January 1996 before her promotion to minister six months later. She was appointed minister of public service and administration in 1999.  She served on the Cabinet committees for economic affairs, social administrative affairs and security and intelligence and also worked on changing the child and youth care system as well as on initiatives relating to eradicating poverty and inequality.
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Fraser-Moleketi, who takes up the post in January, said she believed in the democratic processes in South Africa but needed to step back and use the skills and competencies she had gained to work on a global scale.  The UNDP post will also give her a chance to put to use skills she obtained in 1996 when she was awarded a fellowship to the Institute of Politics at the Kennedy School of Government.
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Fraser-Moleketi's husband, Jabu Moleketi, resigned in September as deputy finance minister. She said the family was still pondering over how to handle the relocation to New York. "I am confident in the democratic processes in the country; I will still contribute from wherever I am as a patriot," she said.