Mandisa Dukashe

Mandisa Dukashe (she/her)

South Africa

Mandisa Dukashe obtained B-Cur degree (with honours), Advanced Clinical Management of HIV, Masters in Public Health and is a PHD candidate. She is a South African woman living openly with HIV for more than 20 years and has more than 16 years’ experience managing provincial and national HIV projects across the cascade. She developed a passion in community systems strengthening (CSS) and has been working closely with civil society organizations through AIDS Councils for the past 5 years. She is an author and an award winner of the 2018 Regional Businesswoman of the Year Social Entrepreneurship Awards. Mandisa is a U=U Pioneer in South Africa, a co-founder of U=U Africa Forum, an AVAC Fellow 2020/2021, a Cure Research Alumni, a Pediatric Adolescent Viral Elimination (PAVE) Global CAB committee member, and a CureROAR Global CAB committee member. She was nominated by the UNAIDS global office to attend a physical meeting held in Brazil in March 2020 to finalize the 2021-2026 Global AIDS Targets, formed part of the UNAIDS Expert Group working on target-setting for 2025 and presented at the UNAIDS Eastern and Southern Africa High Level Meeting held in April 2021 advising on how the 2021-2026 Global AIDS Strategy can be translated into regional context and with ways in which the strategy can be aligned to the Sustainable Developmental Goals (SDG’s). She has been featured in a number of UNAIDS articles, including the Global AIDS Strategy executive summary and the 2018 annual report. Mandisa has also been nominated as a powerful woman in the health sector by Mail and Guardian in 2021 and as a 2021 Amazing People Living with HIV by HIV Plus Mag.