International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) is delighted to announce the appointment of Mr Lucien Kouassi Kouakou as the Regional Director - IPPF Africa Region.
He comes to this position with more than twenty years of passionately committed work in sexual and reproductive health and rights in Africa. He is a product of the IPPF, having worked with the Cote D’Ivoire Member Association (Association Ivoirienne pour le Bien-Etre Familial) in different positions. Starting in 1992 as the Operational Research Coordinator, then Welfare Project Coordinator, followed by Chief of Community Based Distribution and Service Provisions Divisions, then Programme Director and; finally he served as Executive Director for five years. During his time with the Association he provided peer to peer technical assistance to many other Member Associations within IPPF Africa Region and achieved significant results such as increased confidence and trust from donors and partners, the building of two referral SRH clinics in Cote d’Ivoire, increased utilization of service statistics, restructuring of two Member Associations, and strengthened capacity of many Member Associations in strategic planning, gender mainstreaming, rights and sexuality, quality insurance, and commodity security.
He joined the Regional Office in 2008 as the Emergency Response Adviser with an additional responsibility as the Accreditation and Governance Adviser. More recently he has been the Team leader for the West and central Africa Sub-region and since August this year, the acting Regional Director.
His professional background includes study as an economist with extensive experience of health programming and organizational development focusing on gender mainstreaming and quality of services improvement. He has served as a resource person in organization management and total quality management to several IPPF Member Aassociations and numerous international and national organizations like the UN and Cote d’Ivoire National Network of the Civil Society against HIV and AIDs (Composed of 129 NGOs). He developed the National Gender Policy in Cote d’Ivoire as well as the current adopted National Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights programme. He also strengthened the capacity of staff of several ministries on gender mainstreaming. He lectured for almost five years on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights programming and quality insurance in the Public Health Course in the University of Cote d’Ivoire – School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine.
Mr Kouakou is replacing Tewodros Melesse, who has been appointed to the position of Director General of IPPF. Mr Melesse commented on the appointment, “I am delighted that a successor has been identified to the role of Regional Director and one that understands and has worked so much within the field of sexual and reproductive health and rights as well as from within the IPPF family.” He continued, “I have confidence that under Lucien’s leadership, the Regional Office will grow from strength to strength while continuing to utilise its unique assets - the volunteer and staff base in the 42 countries where IPPF operates in Sub-Saharan Africa”.
Mr Kouakou took up the position on 1st December 2011 and is based in the Regional Office in Nairobi, Kenya. His vision is to ensure that IPPF Africa Region cements its leadership role on the continent in the next development cycle. He says, “I will strengthen the support of the volunteers, lead the team at the Regional Office and Member Association levels so that we can all, together, bring about an increase in access to and use of all sexual and reproductive health and rights services”. Lucien is confident that by 2015 IPPF Africa Region can and will be the ‘Go-to’ SRHR organization in Africa.