Women will Change the World, Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin

When Babatunde Osotimehin last year became the head of UNFPA — the international development agency promoting female rights — the news didn’t go down too well with many women working in the field.

After his appointment Osotimehin was told that some female ambassadors at the UN were upset that a man had been made head of the agency. But he was determined to put their minds at ease.

“We had lunch with them [female ambassadors] and they asked me, ‘so, justify this position,'” remembers Osotimehin. “I spoke and after that they stood and said ‘OK, we’re satisfied with that, from today you are an honorary woman.’ I carry that title well.”

A tireless advocate of female rights, Osotimehin has had a long career caring for women. He qualified as a doctor in 1972 and went on to teach at the University of Ibadan, in his native Nigeria, before heading Nigeria’s National Agency for the Control of AIDS and becoming the country’s health minister.

Today, as executive director of the UNFPA, Osotimehin, who is also the U.N.’s under-secretary general, is focused on gender equality and reducing poverty, helping hundreds of millions in developing countries.

Some 20 months into his new role, Osotimehin says he wants the agency to reach as many women and girls around the world as possible, improving their access to reproductive and educational services.

Read the full story from Isa Seshay, and view related videos, on CNN.com

BIOGRAPHY

On 1 January 2011, Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, a physician and public health expert, became only the fourth Executive Director of UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund. He holds the rank of Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations.

Before this appointment, Dr. Osotimehin was Nigeria’s Minister of Health. Prior to that, he was Director-General of Nigeria’s National Agency for the Control of AIDS, which coordinates HIV and AIDS work in a country of more than 160 million people.

Dr. Osotimehin qualified as a doctor from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, in 1972, and went to the University of Birmingham, England, where he got a doctorate in medicine in 1979. He was appointed Professor at the University of Ibadan in 1980 and headed the Department of Clinical Pathology before being elected Provost of the College of Medicine in 1990. Years later, he served in several organizations, including as Chair of the National Action Committee on AIDS, from 2002 to 2007. Dr. Osotimehin received the Nigerian national honour of Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON) in December 2005.

At UNFPA, he has introduced major reforms to make the Fund more focused and results-oriented as well as intensified efforts to promote the rights and ability of young people to build a better world in the context of sexual and reproductive health.

He is married and has five children.