She returns to a single picture again and again: from a ten-year-old girl, it stands on the edge of youth, her future uncertain and her rights still in serious doubt.
“Will she be able to stay in school, go -exam and get their way through the world?” Dr. Kanem wonders. “Or will she be derailed by things such as child marriage, female genitalia mutilation or depressed poverty?”
The seismic question and the girl-not a child in particular, but an emblem of the millions around the world whose future has been in danger-the touch stone of Dr. Kanem’s nearly eight-year term of office as CEO of the UN’s sexual and reproductive health agency, formally known as the UN Population Fund (UNFPA).
From her early days working on the front lines of East Africa to oversee an agency of $ 1.7 billion with operations in more than 150 countries, Dr. Kanem shepherd UNFPA through global shifts, political headwinds and ideological pushback.
Most of all, she has tried a tough revolution in the lives of millions of women and girls.
This month, she steps down from her post ahead of the plan. “It’s time to pass the baton,” the 70-year-old told his staff-a 5,000-strong workforce-in a video-torn address earlier this year. “I have promised to do everything in my capacity to continue to place UNFPA to continue doing big things.”
UNFPA CEO Natalia Kanem (Center) visits the Mamas market in Port Vila, Vanuatu.
Roots and ascension
Dr. Kanem was born in Panama and trained as a doctor and joined UNFPA in 2014 after a career in philanthropy. Her decision to serve “the noble purpose of the United Nations” first led her to East Africa and Tanzania, where she was struck by the quiet heroism by field staff. “It’s really at the country level where we prove our value,” she said UN news.
But the job wasn’t easy. In 2017, when she took the Agency’s reins, inherited Dr. Kanem an organization that fought with diminishing visibility, unstable funding and sustained pushback from conservative views. Still, UNFPA grew – not only in the budget but in stature.
“When I came, the story was,” We are a small organization, the coating, nobody understands what we do, “she said.” Now I think it’s clearer. “
This clarity came partly from what Dr. Kanem calls “thought management.”
Whether challenging misunderstandings about fertility or confrontational gender -based violence activated by technology, she pushed UNFPA to the front lines of global discourse. “We are found in a marketplace with ideas,” she explained. “And we have to tell the truth in a way that is compelling enough so we can get the Allies that this movement requires.”
Under her leadership, the agency trained hundreds of thousands of midwives, distributed billions of birth control, and expanded humanitarian operations to reach women and girls in the most fragile surroundings-from Rohingya camps in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar to war-scented Ukkraine and cholera strick Haiti.
UNFPA’s presence in crisis zones was not only logistical but symbolic. In Sudan, Syria and Gaza, a simple tent filled with menstrual pads, a blanket and a soap bare bare as a sanctuary. “It represents the respite that a woman needs in a time of crisis,” she said. “You know we call our set” dignity set “for that reason.”
UNFPA CEO, Natalia Kanem (right), visits Sudan in March 2021.
Change the conversation
In addition to providing services, Dr. KANEM UNFPA’s role as thought leader in a polarized world. She ruled the Agency for difficult public conversations – about teenage pregnancy, climate anxiety, fertility rates and harassment online – with an unclear insistence on rights.
“The 10-year-old girl exists,” she said. “What her parents and her religious leaders and her communities think is crucial to her being well prepared, for her to know what to do when she is challenged by forced practice.”
This management is expanded to data. Under Dr. Kanem invested UNFPA greatly in supporting national census and building dashboards to help legislators shape reproductive health policy with real -time insight.
This year The world’s population Report, the agency’s annual deep dive into demographic trends, transformed conventional tales about so-called “population collapse” and notes that many women and men are delaying to have children who are not out of ideology but because they cannot afford to raise them.
Dr. Kanem praised altruism for young people who say they choose not to have children for fear of exacerbating the climate crisis. But that’s not what the data shows.
“The world replacement fruit frequency does not jeopardize the planet,” she explained. “Facts really say: You can have as many kids as you can afford.”
A rights -based compass in turbulent times
Dr. Kanem’s office of office coincided with increasing attacks on reproduction rights, rising nationalism and growing skepticism about multilateral institutions. She was facing many years of US cuts in funding – including under the current administration – even when the demand for UNFPA’s services increased.
“UNFPA has more money than we’ve ever had,” she noted. “But it will never be enough to stop the flow of needs.”
Resources alone do not ensure the future of the agency – credibility and persistence are just as important. “The multilateral system itself is set during a time when it is necessary now more than ever,” she warned. “We have to prove ourselves every day. And when we make mistakes, we have to get up and fix them and find partners who need to be allies.”
Such a partner has been the private sector. In 2023, UNFPA collaborated with tech companies to launch a development bond in Kenya and deliver mobile-based sexual healthcare to prevent teenage pregnancy and new HIV infections among young girls.
Dr. Natalia Kanem, head of the United Nations Population Fund (left) speaks to UN news and media Deputy Director Mita Hosali.
Change of mindset
UNFPA has long worked to end harmful practices such as female genitalia (FGM) and children’s marriage. Under Dr. Kanem became this work as much about changing mindset as changed laws.
“Yes, absolutely,” she said when asked if progress was real. “It has been very important to see religious leaders and traditional leaders who are against certain practices … and to work with school systems so that the girls themselves will understand the risk and be able to make better decisions about their opportunities.”
Coronavirus “> Covid-19 Pandemic, she admitted, was a setback. With schools closed, some communities increased the number of weddings and FGM ceremonies. But in many country-inclusive populous indonesia-have unfPa seen practice declined, partly thanks to youth lawyers who speak from their own communities.
New Generation, Next Chapter
When looking forward, Dr. Kanem not by uncertainty. She spoke instead of opportunity. “We have transformed ourselves, modernized ourselves,” she said. “There is just unlimited opportunity for UNFPA.”
Her own future includes what she calls a “mini-sabbatical”-more time for music, her family and finally herself. But she won’t be silent long. “I know that my passion for questions about women and girls will not retire,” she said. “It’s been a work of love.”
Her parting thought? One last return to the girl in the center of it all.
“When the 10-year-old girl succeeds, everyone succeeds,” she said. “It’s a better world.”
