Patience Zanelie Chiradza 

Prior to joining the African Union, Patience was a Dispute Resolution Specialist with the Office of Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (CAO) under the World Bank Group. She has also provided consultancy services on peacebuilding, conflict prevention and transitional justice to IGAD. 

Patience served in the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission of Zimbabwe (2016-2021). She led the thematic area on Conflict Prevention and Non- Recurrence which involved putting in place an infrastructure for conflict prevention and peacebuilding which includes peace committees, dialogue platforms, Dispute Resolution Unit as well as the Conflict Early Warning Early Response mechanism. She was also responsible for interparty dialogue facilitation, as well as mediation processes.  

Patience was the National Coordinator for the Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee (JOMIC) which was responsible for monitoring the implementation of the Global Political Agreement of 2008 (2009-2014). Her work involved liaising with the JOMIC members and SADC Facilitation team on the implementation of agreed issues, coordinating the interparty dialogue platform to attend to complaints and conflicts from the communities, resource mobilisation and programme management among others. Patience started her career in the retail industry working as a store manager for Edgars and Truworths stores (1999-2004) and was Finance and Administration manager for Afrosoft (Pvt) Ltd 2005-2009.  

Patience holds Master of Science degree in International Relations, Masters in Business Administration and a Bachelor of Science Honours in Politics and Administration – from the University of Zimbabwe She is also a graduate of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators.  She has trained in conflict resolution and mediation with the Action Support Centre (South Africa) Clingendael Institute (The Hague), UNITAR, Swisspeace (University of Basel), and FemWise-Africa. She has also participated in the International Politics Summer School at Oxford University where she undertook a course on Democratisation in Africa.