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Tag: Babatunde Osotimehin

  • Nigeria’s envoy pays condolence visit to Osotimehin’s family

    Nigeria’s envoy pays condolence visit to Osotimehin’s family

    Prof. Tijjani Muhammad-Bande, Nigeria’s Ambassador/Permanent Representative to the UN, paid a condolence visit to the family of the late Executive Director of UN Population Fund (UNFPA), Prof. Babatunde Osotimehin.

    The Correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Muhammad-Bande was received by Dr Babajide Osotimehin, the deceased son, on behalf of the family on Monday evening.

    Nigeria’s envoy expressed the condolences of the Permanent Mission of Nigeria to the UN, to the family.

    He described the late Osotimehin as an accomplished and distinguished professional who made Nigeria proud during the period he served at the UN.

    According to him, Osotimehin’s death is an irreparable loss not only to Nigeria but to the UN and the entire global community.

    The Nigerian ambassador later signed the Condolence Register opened at the residence of the late UNFPA chief.

    Muhammad-Bande was accompanied on the condolence visit by the Head of Chancery of the Permanent Mission, Dr Cyprian Heen.

    Osotimehin died in his home in New York Sunday night at the age of 68 years.

    A physician and public health expert, he became UNFPA’s fourth Executive Director on Jan. 1, 2011, with the rank of United Nations Under-Secretary-General.

    Before this appointment, the late UNFPA chief was Nigeria’s Minister of Health.

    Prior to that, he was Director-General of the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA), which coordinated HIV and AIDS work in Nigeria.

    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.

    Osotimehin received the Nigerian national honour of Officer of the Order of the Niger in December 2005.

    He led several councils, including the World Economic Forum.

    Osotimehin was married, had five children and several grandchildren.

  • No woman should die during childbirth – Osotimehin

    No woman should die during childbirth – Osotimehin

    Babatunde Osotimehin, UN Under-Secretary-General and the Executive Director of UN Population Fund (UNFPA) has said that it is no longer acceptable for a woman to die during childbirth.

    Osotimehin said this in an interview with a correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the sidelines of an award dinner organized by the Nigeria Health Foundation in Newark, U.S.

    The UNFPA chief said people should insist that both local and state governments must deliver healthcare to them.

    According to him, if people fail to hold government accountable as far as healthcare is concerned the nation’s health problems will  continue to persist.

    “In the present job I have, it is very painful for me that I would hear and I would see women die during childbirth, as minister and as a doctor.

    “I have seen women die needlessly because they don’t have care and because they don’t get care.

    “So a woman who is in labour goes into a care centre and she bleeds to death. This is totally unacceptable.

    “Those are things that in present day world must not occur at all. These are not things we cannot prevent.

    “We cannot and should not ever leave everything to the hands of the government,” he said.

    Osotimehin, who was a one-time Nigeria’s Minister of Health, regretted that government had become disconnected from the people and urged well-meaning individuals and organizations to come to governments’ aid.

    “We must take charge of our lives and of our people and I want us to all go back to our communities; make sure that we connect with our people.

    “We must make sure we hold our state and local government accountable to deliver care to our people so that at the end of the day, each one of them will have what they deserve in terms of healthcare.”

    He pointed out that in Rwanda, the rate of maternal mortality had been drastically reduced, urging other African countries to learn from the country’s healthcare system.

    “Rwanda is one country that met most of the Millennium Development Goals. You know why? Because of accountability.

    “If a woman dies in labour in Rwanda, the doctor who is attending to that woman is obliged to send a text to the Minister of Health the moment she dies.

    “And you must send the text and tell the minister why the woman dies. That’s not all, they would investigate it.

    “If they find that you were negligent, then they must punish you because life is not something we play with; life is what we all doctors are trained to preserve and to save.

    “We lose patients not because we want to lose them but if you lose a patient because you are careless, then you must be punished,” he said.

    According to him, people must be accountable in whatever they do, whether in the health or any other profession.

    “Accountability must be the watchword for all of us in the practice. Accountability in health is what must be there for everybody. There’s no reason why you cannot be accountable.

    “There’s no reason why a nurse should not be at work. There’s no reason why a doctor should not be at work.

    “There’s no reason why a pharmacist should not be there. There’s no reason why drugs should not be available.

    “There’s no reason why a child should die of malaria or a woman should die giving birth.

    “Those are things that in today’s world and in today’s Nigeria, we can look at them and be sure that we accomplish.

    “And to say we must go beyond that; we must also make each one of us accountable for what we do in practice, in medicine and in every sphere of our lives,” Osotimehin said.

  • Osotimehin reappointed  UNFPA executive director

    Osotimehin reappointed  UNFPA executive director

    The United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, has reappointed Prof. Babatunde Osotimehin as the Executive Director of UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund.

    In a statement on the appointment, the Secretary-General appreciated UNFPA’s progress in effective management of most disadvantaged women and adolescent girls.

    Upon reappointment, Osotimehin relives the past four years and describes it as an honour.

    He said, “It has been an honour to lead this extraordinary organization over the past four years, and I look forward to continuing our work together to improve the lives of women and adolescent girls and ensure that every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person’s potential is fulfilled.

    He also assured the public of UNFPA’s readiness to take on the forthcoming challenges.

    “Despite much progress in the 20 years since Cairo, we still have our work cut out for us. Fortunately, we know what we need to do and where we need to do it, and with our sharpened strategic focus, dedicated and skilled staff, commitment to excellence and to results, UNFPA has never been more ready to address the challenges ahead.”

    The reappointment is effective from 1 January 2015 through 31 December 2017.

     

  • UN partners Nigeria, seven others on reproductive health

    The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) said it would support programmes in eight African countries over the next three years to boost access to reproductive health services for millions of adolescent girls.

    According to UNFPA Executive Director, Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, the countries include Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Mozambique, Niger, Sierra Leone, South Sudan and Tanzania.

    “We are working specifically to ensure that the continent’s adolescent girls, between the ages of 15 and 19, who lives in sub-Saharan Africa get a good education, are able to decide whether and when to marry and have children, are protected from HIV, and remain safe from violence.

    “It programme would ensure that they have their fair share of opportunities to work and contribute to the economic development of their countries,” the News Agency of Nigeria quoted Prof. Osotimehin as saying on the arrangement.

    He noted that the programmes would also aim to deliver a comprehensive set of sexual and reproductive health services for young people to reach disadvantaged and marginalised girls and young women, the ones at highest risk of poor sexual and reproductive health, violence and exploitation.

     

  • ‘More than 140m girls to become child brides in 2020’

    ‘More than 140m girls to become child brides in 2020’

    The United Nations on Friday said that by 2020 more than 140 million girls would have become child brides globally if the current marriage rates continue.

    It warned that little progress has been made towards ending the harmful practise.

    The Executive Director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, said of the 140 million girls, 50 million will be under the age of 15.

    The News Agency of Nigeria reports that Osotimehin spoke at a special session on child marriage at the ongoing UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in New York.

    Some of the issues focused on during the session include supporting and enforcing legislation to increase the minimum age of marriage for girls to 18 years.

    Others are providing equal access to quality primary and secondary education for girls and boys; mobilising girls, boys, parents and leaders to change practises that discriminate against girls among others.

    He said that while 158 countries have set the legal age for marriage at 18 years, laws are rarely enforced since the practice of marrying young children was upheld by tradition and social norms.

    He stated that the practise was most common in rural sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

    The UNFPA Executive Director said that currently, 10 countries with the highest rates of child marriage are Niger, Chad, the Central African Republic, Bangladesh, Guinea, Mozambique, Mali, Burkina Faso, South Sudan and Malawi.