Bio

Viviene Taylor is a feminist scholar and activist from South Africa and is the current DAWN Board Chair. She has been a member of South Africa's liberation movement. Struggles for social justice influence her research and policy advocacy work that focus on the intersections among gender inequalities, politics, and the need for social transformation. She joined DAWN in 1994 as a Research Coordinator and developed DAWN's theme on Political Restructuring and Social Transformation (PRST). She is an internationally recognized expert on social policy, development planning and social and economic development and has researched and published extensively in these areas from a progressive feminist perspective. Professor Taylor was Head of Department in the Department of Social Development at the University of Cape Town. She taught social policy, development planning and social and economic development. Her career consists of both national and international development experience spanning over 30 years. She has worked with the United Nations on a global Commission on Human Security, with governments, the non-governmental sector and academia. She was the principal author and researcher of South Africa’s first two Human Development Reports sponsored by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). In 2008 she completed a 50-country research study for the African Union on Social Protection called Social Protection in Africa: An Overview of the Challenges. She has over 60 publications (chapters in books, research-based and peer-reviewed articles, and conference papers).