Nduna

Zambian-born John Nduna, a relief and development worker with experience at international and field levels in Switzerland and Africa, joined the Geneva-based Coordinating Office of Action by Churches Together (ACT) International as its director on April 1, 2006.

Mr. Nduna previously headed up the ecumenical organisation, Church Ecumenical Action in Sudan (CEAS), which operates out of Nairobi. In joining ACT—a global alliance of churches and related agencies responding to humanitarian emergencies—Mr. Nduna brought with him two decades’ experience in the field of humanitarian work and working in particular with refugees in various sectors such as small business development, self-help and repatriation programs.

Mr. Nduna believes that as an ecumenical body, one of ACT’s strengths is that its 128-strong membership is well placed to respond to humanitarian crises, at a local level through churches and church councils and related agencies, as well as at a global level.
Mr. Nduna, an Anglican, was born in the Monze district in the Southern region of Zambia, and grew up in Kitwe and Lusaka in Zambia and has worked in Africa for some 20 years, with five years spent in Geneva, Switzerland, as the ACT International appeals officer for Africa.

He graduated from the University of Zambia with a Bachelor of Arts degree, majoring in economics, which led to an early career in banking. His degree was later supplemented by an international qualification in small business management from the International Institute of Small Business Management in Hyderabad, India. But a desire to “make a difference” saw him take up several appointments within the field of humanitarian assistance and development, with a focus on refugees in Zambia, Mozambique and Tanzania. Mr. Nduna worked for, amongst others, the Lutheran World Federation/Tanganyika Christian Refugee Service, as its emergency project coordinator of its Burundi Refugee Program in Tanzania. Of special concern to him is the continued “lack of meaningful response to some of the world’s worst humanitarian situations around the world, such as the ‘forgotten emergencies’ of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in Sudan.”

Mr. Nduna manages a staff of 14.

Mr. Nduna is married to Sydia Nduna, who is a consultant with the World Council of Churches, working in the field of uprooted peoples in Africa. They have three children: Chimuka, Busiku and John (Jr.).