UN Secretary General Kofi Annan promoted a Saudi woman, Thoraya Obaid, on Wednesday to head United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
Obaid, the first Saudi national to head a UN agency, will take over on January 1 from Nafis Sadik, who is retiring after 14 years as executive director of UNFPA.
Annan told a news conference Obaid was "an outstanding official" in the UN system, which she joined in 1975. She has been director of the Division for Arab States and Europe at UNFPA since December 1998.
In a statement, Sadik welcomed the appointment, saying Obaid "has the necessary experience and skills to lead the Fund in the new millennium."
Sadik, a Pakistani obstetrician, was the first woman to head a UN agency and said she was "delighted" that her successor would be a woman.
"We have made great strides in population issues over the past 30 years. Individuals are now at the center of population policy, and women's empowerment is now seen as critical for development," Sadik said.
UNFPA is the largest international source of population assistance, channeling about a quarter of all aid of that kind from donor countries to developing nations.
Since it began operations in 1969, it has provided more than five billion dollars in assistance to virtually all developing countries.
But Sadik pointed out "a woman dies every minute due to pregnancy-related causes, and some 350 million couples do not have access to a range of safe and effective contraceptive methods."
Obaid had "shown her commitment to these issues and I believe she will be courageous in moving the agenda forward," Sadik said.
In 1975, Obaid established the first women's development program in Western Asia.
In 1996 she chaired the UN inter-agency task force on gender in Amman, Jordan, and the following year she was part of an inter-agency mission to Afghanistan.
The first Saudi woman to receive a government scholarship to study in the United States, she has a PhD in English from Wayne State University, in Detroit, Michigan -- UNITED NATIONS (AFP)
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