Former UNFPA Executive Director, UN Under-Secretary General
(18 August 1929–14 August 2022)
Appointed by UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, Dr. Nafis Sadik served as Executive Director of UNFPA from April 1987 through December 2000, becoming the first woman to head one of the UN’s major voluntarily funded programmes.
After retiring from UNFPA, she served as Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General and as his Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Asia and the Pacific.
Throughout her life, Dr. Sadik called attention to the importance of addressing the needs of women, and of involving women directly in making and carrying out development policy. This is particularly important for population policies and programmes.
In June 1990, she was appointed as Secretary-General of the International Conference on Population and Development. Dr Sadik said of the landmark 1994 conference: “When the essential needs of the individual are addressed, those of larger groups – the family, the community, the nation and indeed the planet – are more likely to be kept in the right perspective. One of the challenges to the conference is to find the balance between individual rights and responsibilities on the one hand, and the rights and obligations of the wider society on the other.”
A national of Pakistan, Dr. Sadik was born in Jaunpur, India, the daughter of Iffat Ara and Mohammad Shoaib. Her contribution to improving the health of the world’s women and children brought her many international awards and honours.
She was a member of the Board of Governors of the Foundation for Human Development and a member of the South Asian Commission on the Asian Challenge. She served as President of the Society for International Development from 1994 to 1997.
Dr. Sadik wrote numerous articles for leading publications about family planning, health, and population and development, and edited several books. Among them: Population: The UNFPA Experience (New York University Press, 1984), Population Policies and Programmes: Lessons Learned from Two Decades of Experience (New York University Press, 1991) and Making a Difference: Twenty-five Years of UNFPA Experience (Banson, London, United Kingdom, 1994).
