He assumed office on 1 January 2011, becoming the fourth Executive Director of UNFPA.
"Dr. Osotimehin’s qualifications and extensive experience position him well to lead the global agenda for population and development and to promote the right to sexual and reproductive health," said Thoraya Obaid, the departing Executive Director.

Dr. Osotimehin used the moment to launch a major push to realize the rights and potential of young people, whose numbers had swollen to historic size.

Adolescence is a time of extraordinary vulnerability for girls. Too many grapple with premature marriage and motherhood, followed by a lifetime of poverty and vulnerability. Yet when they are educated and empowered, girls can help their families and communities rise out of poverty. “They are the unexpected solution to many of the world’s most pressing problems,” said Dr. Osotimehin, “provided we join efforts to unleash their power and potential.”

Concrete actions must be taken to achieve sustainable development, including investments in young people’s skills, educations, and sexual and reproductive health, Dr. Osotimehin said. This would become a refrain throughout his tenure at UNFPA.

The London Summit on Family Planning, organized by the United Kingdom, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, UNFPA and partners, called for increasing access to voluntary family planning to 120 million more women in developing countries by 2020. “Leaving the need for family planning unmet,” Dr. Osotimehin said, “would be to accept the unacceptable.”

Five regional conferences were launched as part of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) review process, assessing the progress made so far in implementing the ICPD Programme of Action – the ground-breaking 1994 agreement recognizing that sexual and reproductive health and rights are necessary for development. These regional conferences also addressed challenges and gaps faced in implementing the ICPD Programme of Action.

In observance of the inaugural 2012 International Day of the Girl Child, UNFPA co-organized a high-level panel discussion about ending child marriage. UNFPA also launched a report calling attention to the continued prevalence of child marriage throughout the world.

The Montevideo Consensus was a wide-ranging agreement on increasing access to sexual and reproductive health, achieving gender equality, realizing young peoples’ rights, and integrating of population issues into development. Its adoption came as part of the ICPD review process.

UNFPA responded to the needs of women and girls in the Philippines in the aftermath of the storm, one of the most intense on record. An estimated 14 million people were affected by the crisis, including hundreds of thousands of pregnant women. “Our response to the tremendous devastation has become of utmost priority for UNFPA,” explained Dr. Osotimehin. “We are urgently providing life-saving reproductive health services, including clean delivery kits and emergency obstetric care, to millions of affected women and girls.”

The Joint Global Programme on Essential Services for Women and Girls Subject to Violence, a four-year programme, aimed to reach global consensus on guidelines for responding to gender-based violence.

Tens of thousands of people were infected, and thousands died in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. But the impact of the disease was even broader: Strained health systems left many without access to essential health services, including reproductive health care. UNFPA supported contact tracing efforts and provided emergency reproductive health kits, clean delivery kits, blood transfusion sets and other critical equipment. In the aftermath of the outbreak, UNFPA began a massive effort to improve midwifery skills and services in the region, helping health systems to recover.

At a special session of the United Nations General Assembly, world leaders marked the 20th anniversary of the ICPD – the 1994 conference in Cairo that broke new ground by recognizing that sexual and reproductive health and rights, gender equality, and equal access to education are prerequisites for sustainable development – and recommitted to achieving its goals.

Over 5 million people were affected by the disaster, including over 90,000 pregnant women. UNFPA responded with reproductive health kits, dignity kits, women-friendly spaces, reproductive health camps and other services. Dr. Osotimehin was quick to emphasize the need to ensure the health of pregnant women and the safety of their babies.

UNFPA issued a clarion call to countries with large youth populations: Such countries may be poised to realize a “demographic dividend” – economic growth achieved by having proportionally more people of working age. UNFPA called on these countries to invest in the skills and capacities of their young people – the subject of a high-level event organized by the President of the United Nations General Assembly.

World leaders unanimously adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) during a three-day summit at United Nations Headquarters. UNFPA’s core work – including its promotion of sexual and reproductive health and gender equality – formed a key part of these new goals, which are seen as essential to ensuring a sustainable future.

Multiple humanitarian crises – including the Syrian conflict – had caused a record numbers of displacements around the world. The UN Refugee agency called it the “largest refugee and displacement crisis of our time.” In these situations, women and girls are especially vulnerable. Some 60 per cent of maternal deaths take place in humanitarian crises and fragile conditions, UNFPA said in its flagship report, drawing attention to the health, needs and rights of women and girls.

After the World Health Organization declared the Zika outbreak a public health emergency, UNFPA rushed to provide services to women and young people in the affected regions. UNFPA prioritized ensuring access to sexual and reproductive health care, including voluntary family planning. UNFPA also worked to disseminate information about Zika and its prevention, through door-to-door campaigns, health fairs and mainstream media.

At the first-ever World Humanitarian Summit, UNFPA, along with other major humanitarian actors as well as many governments, signed a compact committing to better understanding and addressing the unique needs of adolescents and youth in crisis settings.

Presidents, ministers, and United Nations and World Bank officials convened at UN Headquarters in New York to strengthen their commitments for the young people of Africa. “We have estimates that show that if we do this, and we do it right, we can actually add to the GDP of Africa – $500 billion every year for 30 years,” said Dr. Osotimehin. “It’s mind-blowing.”

UNFPA’s flagship report, the State of World Population 2016, showed that the welfare of girls at the cusp of adolescence, around age 10, will help determine whether the world achieves sustainable development. When these girls are empowered, they contribute enormously to the global economy, to the health and well-being of their families, and to their communities and countries.

The African Union (AU) met under the theme “Harnessing the demographic dividend through investments in the youth”. UNFPA called for increased access to family planning to make these goals a reality. “If you don’t have a working family planning programme, it is unthinkable to reap the demographic dividend,” Dr. Osotimehin said at the AU Summit. Following the Summit, the AU released a roadmap of key actions and deliverables, which UNFPA helped to formulate.