Meet Nafis Sadik, an obstetrician-gynaecologist who in 1987 became the first woman to direct a United Nations agency – the UN Population Fund – and was widely regarded as one of the most effective champions of women’s reproductive rights globally.

Sadik, whose maternal grandmother died in childbirth, spent her early career as a medical corps officer in Pakistan’s armed forces and with the country’s family-planning program. She was horrified by her years encountering women living in squalor and giving birth to as many as 15 children, often endangering their own lives. When she joined the fledgling UN Population Fund in 1971, she was tasked with helping poor women all over the world gain access to contraception and healthcare educational materials.

She spent decades confronting government leaders about the importance of elevating the status of women more generally, through access to education, jobs and greater rights.

UN secretary-general Javier Pérez de Cuéllar named Sadik executive director of the Population Fund in 1987. She led the agency – with a staff of around 800 and a budget of about $300m (£255m) – for the next 13 years amid a period of surging population growth. The agency predicted in 1990 that three new lives were being added to the planet every second.13.5