ALCOHOL POLICY7 AUG 2026The woman asking South Africa to confront what it has normalisedNomcebo Dlamini, campaign director of Saapa SA, is leading the charge to challenge South Africa’s deeply ingrained…Lesego Chepape7 min read

Saapa campaign director Nomcebo Dlamini is challenging the country to confront its deeply rooted drinking culture, proving that real leadership begins with asking the difficult questions others avoid South Africans have become so accustomed to alcohol being part of everyday life that many hardly notice it anymore. Nomcebo Dlamini has made that question her life’s work. As campaign director of the Southern African Alcohol Policy Alliance in South Africa (Saapa SA), she has dedicated her career to asking difficult questions about the role alcohol plays in South African society.

It is work that takes her into communities where families are grappling with violence, child neglect and addiction but it is also work that begins with listening. “I’ve been in public health advocacy for about 10 years,” she says. “Working with young people, I came to realise that we have a serious problem in our country when it comes to substance use.

I never like complaining about a problem and doing absolutely nothing about it. Even if you can’t solve everything, at least try to do the bit that you can.” The words have shaped her career. With experience in project management and youth development, Dlamini did not set out to become one of South Africa’s leading alcohol policy advocates.

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Instead, curiosity led her there. As she searched for answers, she discovered the Central Drug Authority and South Africa’s National Drug Master Plan. Wondering why so few people seemed to know about either, she applied to serve on the authority in 2021.

It was there that she noticed something she has never stopped talking about. “There was a lot of focus on illicit substances,” she says. “But hardly any focus on alcohol because it is a legal substance.

It’s almost ignored as a drug. But alcohol is a drug. Just because it’s legal doesn’t mean it’s not causing harm.” Travelling through communities across South Africa, Dlamini has found that people understand the crisis.

They do not need convincing that alcohol is harming families. They live with its consequences every day. “Over 70% of the South Africans we’ve spoken to realise there’s a problem,” she says.

“One of the biggest challenges is that we binge-drink. Our beer is cheap sometimes cheaper than a loaf of bread. Families are making choices between buying bread and buying beer.

Communities are asking us the same questions: Why is it so cheap? Why is there so much advertising? Why is it everywhere?”

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