Elijah Ngurare

He studied at Kolin Foundation Secondary School[3] in Namibia, where he served as Student Representative Council (SRC) president, among other positions. He studied at the Central State University, Ohio (USA) with a Presidential Honours Scholarship, where he served as a tutor in the English Writing Lab, as a senator on Student Government and was founder, and president of the International Students Association. He graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Science degree in Water Resources Management and International Relations. While studying in Ohio, he spent his summers in New Mexico and Texas, working as a counselor at Camp Balcones Springs near Austin, Texas, as a laborer on road construction with the Armstrong Construction Company, and as a dishwasher at Taco Bell, where he was named Employee of the Month after only two weeks.

He then pursued a Master of Laws from the University of Dundee, Scotland, where he held a British Chevening Scholarship. He has completed a thesis entitled “Establishing Environmental Law in Developing Economies on the basis of Selected Principles of International Environmental Law: The Southern African Development Community Case Study” under the supervision of Dr. Owen McIntyre. He has presented papers at a number of national and international conferences and during his studies he traveled extensively throughout Southern Africa, China and India. Ngurare successfully completed his thesis in April 2009 and was conferred with his PhD on 18 June 2009 from the National University of Ireland, Cork, Republic of Ireland.

Ngurare's political activeness began in 1983 at Nkurenkuru High School and continued at Linus Shashipapo Secondary School, where he was a student during the founding of the student movement Namibia National Students Organisation in 1984. He held various student positions and was active in Section, Branches and District Leadership of SWAPO Party Youth League. Ngurare rose to political prominence as Secretary of Information, Publicity and Mobilisation of the SWAPO Party Youth League (SPYL) under Paulus Kapia in 2002 before becoming its secretary general in 2007, and being subsequently re-elected in 2012 for a second term unopposed respectively.

He served on the board of directors at Namdeb Holdings (Pty) Ltd, Namdeb Diamond Corporation (Pty) Ltd, Africa Online (Pty) Ltd, MultiChoice Namibia, Kalahari Holdings (Pty) Ltd and Namibia Water Corporation Ltd.[4]

He was born in a peasant family at Nkurenkuru during the South African Border War.[5] His father had four wives and his mother was the youngest in the union. As a little boy, he looked after his father’s cattle and goats like all other boys at the time. Ngurare is the first born to his mother’s nine children. Ngurare is married to Albertina Mbute Ngurare and has four children. He is Lutheran by religion and an ardent church goer.

• Ngurare |NID Namibia Institute of Democracy
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