Purnima Mane
Dr. Purnima Mane, a social scientist, whose areas of expertise include
international health, gender issues, and AIDS policy and programme development,
took over as a vice president of the Population Council and director of its International
Programs Division from 1 February 2001. She is based in New York, USA
Dr. Mane was at the Population Council since September 1999 as director of
program planning for the International Programs Division, with responsibility
for oversight of two large USAID-funded global operations research projects
based in Washington, DC - Frontiers in Reproductive Health and Horizons,
focusing on HIV/AIDS prevention, care and impact - mitigation - and two
programs based in New York - reproductive health, and gender, family, and
development. Dr. Mane resided in Washington D.C. till October 2001 when she relocated to New York.
Before joining the Council, Dr. Mane was based in Geneva, Switzerland,
serving in various management, supervisory, and research posts at the Joint
United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) from 1996 to 1999 and the Global
Programme on AIDS of the World Health Organization (WHO/GPA) from 1994 to 1995.
At UNAIDS, she managed overall program planning and development in the office
of the executive director and helped develop a gender strategy for the
organization. At WHO/GPA, she was responsible for overall management of studies
on the social and behavioural aspects of HIV and AIDS in Asia, Africa, and
Central and South America
Earlier, she was a faculty member of the department of medical and
psychiatric social work at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India,
for 12 years, serving as associate professor from 1987 to 1993.
Dr. Mane received her M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. degrees in social work from
the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India, and her B.A. in
psychology from St. Xavier's College, Mumbai. She also was a postdoctoral
Fulbright Fellow from 1991 to 1992 at the School
of Hygiene and Public Health, Johns Hopkins
University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA, where she did research on
women and AIDS. She has co-authored four books and more than 35 papers on
mental health, AIDS prevention, and gender relations, and is a founder-editor
of the journal Culture, Health & Sexuality.
Apart from being a distinguished academician, Dr. Mane has been associated
with music and theatre since her childhood. During her school days, she, along
with her brother Nandu used to sing for the All India Radio. She has performed
for television, and acted in several professional, Marathi plays. She played
the role of Mary Magdalene in Jesus Christ
Superstar with Nandu as Judas
UNFPA,
UNAIDS WELCOME PURNIMA MANE AS NEW
UNFPA DEPUTY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
UNITED NATIONS,
New York/Geneva, 19 March 2007 – 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.
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
