Tasneem Essop

Tasneem Essop, former Provincial Minister of Environment, Planning and Economic Development in the Western Cape and was responsible for the Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning (DEADP) and the Department of Economic Development, as well as the Western Cape Investment and Trade Promotion Agency, Wesgro and the Western Cape Nature Conservation Board, CapeNature.

As of 25 September 2008, Essop is employed by World Wide Fund for Nature in South Africa as International Climate Policy Advocate. Essop focuses on WWF’s Global Climate Deal Network Initiative. The aim of the Initiative is to secure a binding multilateral agreement, by the end of 2009 that sets the world on a path to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050

Prior to 1994 she was an anti-Apartheid activist involved in youth, union and gender organisations. An educator by profession, she started her career in 1985, teaching English, History and Guidance at Glendale Senior Secondary in Mitchell’s Plain, Western Cape.

Even though her teaching career appeared to be brief, she left the secondary school in 1988, her love for education continued to play a dominant role in her career.

Essop worked as an Education Officer for the British Council for two years before taking up a post as Education and Media Officer at the South African Municipal Workers Union. She went on to become Cosatu’s Regional Education Officer a position which she held from 1992 to 1994.

After the first democratic elections in 1994 she became an ANC Member of the Provincial Legislature (MPL) where she served as the ANC’s Western Cape Spokesperson on Finance & Public Accounts.

During this period in opposition, Essop became the Chairperson of the Provincial Standing Committee on Finance (SCOPA) which exercised financial oversight over the Executive and went on to become a Founding Member and Chairperson of the national Association of Public Accounts Committees (APAC) in South Africa.

In 2001 she was appointed as Western Cape Provincial Minister of Transport, Public Works & Property Management. In May 2004, she was appointed as Provincial Minister of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning.

In this portfolio she has been a staunch promoter of sustainable development and has piloted a number of new policies for the province, such as the Provincial Spatial Development Framework (PSDF), a Climate Change Response Strategy, a Sustainable Energy Strategy (SES) and Guidelines for Golf Estates, Polo Fields and Polo Estates.

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