- The death of Nelson Mandela on December 5, 2013, was a tremendous loss. He was widely credited for shepherding South Africa's peaceful transition to a more equitable and democratic system. A cornerstone of that transition was South Africa's constitution, which enshrines fundamental values of human dignity, equality, and freedom, as well as the importance of nation building, public participation, and social cohesion. Almost two decades into its democracy, South Africa is not the country that Mandela had said he hoped it would become. Economic inequality and poverty remain rife; the education and health sectors are inadequate; and South Africa remains divided by various forms of separation.