UNITED NATIONS, New York/Geneva — UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) are delighted with the appointment of Ms. Purnima Mane as the new Deputy Executive Director (Programme) of UNFPA. Ms. Mane joins UNFPA from UNAIDS, where she served as Director of Policy, Evidence and Partnership.

“UNFPA is proud to welcome Ms. Mane, who has devoted her career to advocating for population and development issues and the right to sexual and reproductive health,” said Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, the Executive Director of UNFPA. “Ms. Mane pioneered work on gender and AIDS, long before the feminization of HIV/AIDS became apparent. UNFPA and its partners will benefit substantially from her leadership and guidance in the population and development field.”

UNFPA, which promotes the right of every woman, man and child to enjoy a life of health and equal opportunity, has been a UNAIDS Co-sponsor since the beginning of the Joint Programme in 1996.

“UNFPA is a critical ally in the AIDS response and is a committed Co-sponsor of UNAIDS,” said UNAIDS Executive Director, Peter Piot. “I have known and worked with Ms. Mane for many years, and I am thrilled that she will now play such a prominent leadership role in reproductive health. We look forward to continuing to work closely with Ms. Mane and UNFPA in the future on the exceptional issue of AIDS.”

Ms. Mane joined the World Health Organization’s Global Programme on AIDS in 1994, moving to UNAIDS at its inception in 1996, where she provided oversight to the area of behavioural sciences research and gender and AIDS. She also managed the Executive Office.

From 1999 to 2003, she worked at the Population Council in New York, where she later became Vice-President and Director of International Programmes. In 2003, she went on to work for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, where she was Chief Fund Portfolio Director and Director, Asia.

She returned to UNAIDS in 2004 as Director, driving the development of UNAIDS policy, evidence and partnership work serving as a vital member of the Senior Management Team.

Ms. Mane has a distinguished track record as an international expert on gender and HIV and led the process of developing the HIV Prevention Policy, which was endorsed by the UNAIDS Programme Coordinating Board in June 2005.

Ms. Mane, who is Indian, holds a doctorate degree from the Tata Institute of Social Studies in Mumbai where she later went on to become Associate Professor. Before joining UNAIDS, Ms. Mane worked for over 13 years in India on public health and gender-related issues.

Ms. Mane has co-authored and edited a number of books and she is a founding editor of the journal, Culture, Health and Sexuality.

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UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, is an international development agency that promotes the right of every woman, man and child to enjoy a life of health and equal opportunity. UNFPA supports countries in using population data for policies and programmes to reduce poverty and to ensure that every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe, every young person is free of HIV/AIDS, and every girl and woman is treated with dignity and respect.

UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, brings together the efforts and resources of ten UN system organizations to the global AIDS response. Co-sponsors include UNHCR, UNICEF, WFP, UNDP, UNFPA, UNODC, ILO, UNESCO, WHO and the World Bank. Based in Geneva, the UNAIDS secretariat works on the ground in more than 80 countries worldwide. Visit the UNAIDS Web site at www.unaids.org.

Contact Information:

New York: Abubakar Dungus, Tel: +1 (212) 297-5031, dungus@unfpa.org

Geneva: Beth Magne-Watts, Tel: +41 22 791 5074, Mobile: +41 79 832 3814, magnewattsb@unaids.org