Ms Tasneem Essop is the head of strategy and advocacy for the International World Wide Fund for Nature’s Global Climate and Energy Initiative. She is the head of delegation at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change sessions. She is former MEC of Environment, Planning and Economic Development in the Western Cape and former MEC of Transport, Public Works and Property Management.

After 1994 she became an ANC Member of the Provincial Legislature where she served as the ANC’s Western Cape Spokesperson on Finance and Public Accounts before her appointment as a Member of the Executive Council in 2001.

Before the first democratic elections in 1994 Tasneem 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. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree.