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Ambassador Jendayi E. Frazer
Assistant Secretary, Bureau of African Affairs
U.S. Department of State

Jendayi E. Frazer Jendayi E. Frazer is the Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of African Affairs, a position to which she was appointed by President George W. Bush in June 2005. She was sworn in and began her tenure as Assistant Secretary on August 29, 2005. Prior to becoming Assistant Secretary, Frazer served as the United States Ambassador to South Africa from August 3, 2004 to August 26, 2005.

Among Frazer's key achievements as United States Ambassador were the oversight of rapid expansion of HIV/AIDS prevention, care, and treatment programs under the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, and the promotion of a new era of cooperation in regional peacekeeping through signature of a bilateral agreement with the South African Government under the Africa Contingency Operations Training Assistance (ACOTA) program.

Ambassador Frazer was Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for African Affairs at the National Security Council from February 22, 2001, until her swearing-in as Ambassador in June 17, 2004. She came to the NSC from Harvard University, where she was serving as an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government. As a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow, she served as a political-military planner with the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Department of Defense, and as Director for African Affairs at the National Security Council.

She is a graduate of Stanford University, where she earned a B.A. in Political Science and African and African-American Studies, M.A. degrees in International Policy Studies and International Development Education, and a Ph.D. in Political Science. Dr. Frazer was a visiting fellow at the Center for International Security and Arms Control at Stanford University; a research associate at the Institute for Development Studies at the University of Nairobi, Kenya; a member of the faculty of the Graduate School of International Studies, University of Denver; and editor of the journal Africa Today.