South Africa embodies England for her, on reflection (5)
I believe the answer is:
agnes
'reflection' is the definition.
Both the answer and definition are singular nouns.
Maybe you can see an association between them that I don't see?
'south africa embodies england for her' is the wordplay.
'south africa' becomes 'ns' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'embodies' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'england' becomes 'e'.
'for' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other) (I've seen this in other clues).
'her' becomes 'ag'.
'ns' going around 'e' is 'nes'.
'nes' put after 'ag' is 'AGNES'.
'on' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for agnes that I've seen before include "Scandinavian singer" , "Miss Grey" , "Girl's name" , "Patron saint of virgins" , "Lady" .)