November 9: Conversation with Babatunde Osotimehin, Executive Director of UNFPA

On Wednesday November 9, 2011, Roosevelt House hosted a conversation with Babatunde Osotimehin, Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and UN Under-Secretary-General.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin is the fourth Executive Director of UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund. He holds the rank of Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations.

Before this appointment, Dr. Osotimehin  served as the Minister of Health of Nigeria. Prior to that position, he was the Director-General of the Nigerian National Agency for the Control of AIDS, which coordinates all HIV and AIDS work in a country of about 160 million people.

Dr. Osotimehin qualified as a medical doctor from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, in 1972, and then went to the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom, where he received a doctorate in medicine in 1979. He is a member of the United Kingdom's Royal College of Physicians and was, between 1996 and 1997, a visiting fellow at the Harvard Centre for Population and Development Studies. In 2006, he was inducted as a fellow of the prestigious Nigerian Academy of Sciences.

In recognition of his contributions, especially as a leader of Nigeria's response to HIV and AIDS, he was awarded the national honor of Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON) in December 2005.