UNFPA Executive Director Delivers Her Final Executive Board Statement

NEW YORK — When she first addressed her Executive Board nearly a decade ago,  Executive Director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid highlighted three basic challenges facing UNFPA: ensuring a financially stable Fund, strengthening its institutional capacity, and addressing the social and cultural context of programme development and delivery.

Her final statement to the board today examined progress in those three areas, and went into detail about many other issues. In a 45-minute address that was hailed by board members as being comprehensive, frank, detailed and insightful, she outlined successes, shortcomings and challenges that remain for UNFPA in ensuring accountability and driving the ICPD agenda forward.

Under Ms. Obaid’s leadership, the Fund has achieved much of what she set out to do. It has nearly doubled its funding, from approximately $400 million to nearly $700 million, notwithstanding the global financial downturn. In terms of institutional capacity, the Fund has reorganized to become more field-focused, improved internal communications, invested in human resources and training, and put in place numerous measures to improve accountability.

The Fund’s emphasis on the social and cultural dimensions of development has been a matter of personal conviction as well as an institutional priority, Ms. Obaid said, as she discussed some of the measures that UNFPA has pioneered during her tenure. “By integrating gender, culture and human rights we have expanded the scope of ICPD supporters beyond the traditional actors,” she said. “UNFPA has played a critical role in highlighting the power of culture to change social norms and gender dynamics for equality between men and women by engaging communities and local leaders. There is rising understanding that lasting change cannot be imposed from the outside, but must come from within.”

Ms. Obaid concluded by noting that working for UNFPA is far more than a job, but a commitment, a mindset and a way of life. “It is about a life for all of equality, opportunity, peace, dignity, self-worth, and self-fulfillment,” she said, “The ICPD Programme of Action is very much a human rights agenda. It requires compassion for those we serve and passion for the cause. And I will continue to be a champion for this cause as long as I live.”

As she left the podium, the applause was sustained, and Executive Board members heaped praise on Ms. Obaid's 'charismatic' and ‘stellar' leadership’, her detailed insights, and her ‘remarkable tenure’. Many thanked her for her many years of dedicated service and wished her well on the next chapter of a brilliant career.

The announcement of a new Executive Director is expected from UN Secretary Ban Ki-moon later this year.