Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda is the World YWCA General Secretary. She is a trained human rights lawyer with extensive experience in conflict resolution and mediation. For some twenty years, she has been working on issues of women and children’s human rights, with a special focus on crisis countries. Active in the women’s movement, she has more specifically focused on issues of violence against women, peace with justice, property rights, sexual and reproductive health and rights and HIV and AIDS. She is current chair of CIVICUS, and Rozaria Memorial Trust, and serves on the Advisory Committee for Girls Not Brides. She is the first President from the global south to serve on the NGO Committee on the Status of Women. She was appointed a member of the High Level Group on HIV Prevention and Sexual Health for Young People in Eastern and Southern Africa by the United Nations; following her service as a member of the UN Commission on Information and Accountability on Women and Children’s Health.

In May 2014 she was named Goodwill Ambassador of the African Union Campaign to End Child Marriage, further consolidating the World YWCA’s important work on ending child, early and forced marriage in a single generation.