Nafis Sadik, a Pakistani doctor who led women’s health and rights campaigns and spearheaded the breakthrough action plan adopted by 179 countries at the 1994 U.N. population conference in Cairo, has died.
Her son, Omar Sadik said she died of natural causes at her home in New York on Sunday night.
“We are profoundly saddened to learn of the death of Dr Nafis Sadik, Former @UNFPA Executive Director. We extend sincere condolences to Dr Sadik’s family, the people of Pakistan and all who are mourning her loss,” The UNFPA said in a tweet.
Nafis Sadik joined the U.N. Population Fund in 1971, became its assistant executive director in 1977, and was appointed executive director in 1987 by then Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar after the sudden death of its chief, Rafael Salas. She was the first woman to head a major United Nations program that is voluntarily funded.
In June 1990, Perez de Cuellar appointed Ms Sadik to be secretary-general of the fifth U.N. International Conference on Population and Development in 1994, and she became the architect of its groundbreaking program of action which recognized for the first time that women have the right to control their reproductive and sexual health and to choose whether to become pregnant.
After she retired from the Population Fund in 2000, Sadik served as special adviser to the secretary-general and special envoy on HIV/AIDS in Asia and the Pacific.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Sadik will be remembered: “for her significant contributions to women’s health and rights and population policies and for her tireless efforts to combat HIV/AIDS.”
“She consistently called attention to the importance of addressing the needs of women, and of involving women directly in making and carrying out development policy, which she believed was particularly important for population policies and programs,” Mr Guterres said.
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