NEW YORK, Nov 27 (LSN.ca) – In a revealing interview published today by the UN Foundation news service, outgoing UN Population Fund (UNFPA) Executive Director Nafis Sadik admitted that she has been very successful at changing policies around the globe in areas of reproductive health, population issues and family planning. An interview with Sadik, who has led the UNFPA for 14 years and has been with the organization for 29 years, she said that when the agency started, few countries had family planning programs because it was simply not acceptable in many areas. But “now every country in the developing world has family planning as part of its health service, and today every country now has a reproductive health program.”
Sadik also admits that her agency has been responsible for tying developmental assistance to population control. “I think we’ve been able to make the consensus … that population issues are part of developmental issues, that they’re not separate, that they link with all facets of social life and economic and developmental life,” Sadik says. “Without pursuing social policies and social goals, you can’t really have economic development,” she adds. (Candace Hammond, UN Wire, 27 Nov)
Kofi Annan has appointed Ms. Thoraya Obaid of Saudi Arabia to head the Fund effective 1 January 2001. Ms. Obaid is currently the Director of the Division for Arab States and Europe at UNFPA.
See the UN release on Obaid’s appointment at: https://www.unfpa.org/news/pressroom/2000/executivedirector.htm