Ms. Keita has over 30+ years of experience working for international non-profit organizations, and is a passionate leader in global public health, adolescent and maternal health, inclusive growth, gender equality, public policy, and international diplomacy.
As a UNFPA Representative in Nigeria, she has advocated for longer-term humanitarian funding for the Gender-Based Violence (GBV) position, mobilized significant resources for long-term funding of the GBV coordinator position. Her actions strengthened the UNFPA position in Nigeria as a reliable humanitarian actor with the capacity to respond and prevent GBV and coordinate the GBV partners.
As UNFPA Resident Rep. in DRC, she deployed her advocacy skills, to position UNFPA issues as critical socioeconomic issues within the context of the country’s national policies, plans and frameworks.
She mobilised significant resources from multiple sources in the public and private sector for transformative results.
The policy initiatives, projects and programs she has co-developed and co-led in Africa, Latin America & the Caribbean, has impacted tens of millions of women, children and adolescents, with positive health and socio-economic outcome
In 2018, Ms Diene had the honour of working with the Government of Guinea as a Minister of International Cooperation and African Integration. In this role, she built partnerships between the private and public sectors and between the Republic of Guinea and other African and ECOWAS countries, ensuring that substantive knowledge was shared on the country and all local undertakings met the requirement of global agendas specifically the Sustainable Development Goals, and AU 2063 while facilitating compliance with national policies.
In her role, she assisted the strengthening of cooperation between Guinea and her partners by building strategic partnerships with the World Bank, United Nations system, USAID, Bilaterals, Private Foundations such as Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Global Fund, and private sector multinationals.
Ms. Keita joined UNFPA in 2006 as Representative in Mauritania, and thereafter served in representative positions in Benin, as well as in DRC and Nigeria (two of UNFPA’s largest programmes globally). During this time, Ms. Keita successfully led large and complex public health programmes, expanded strategic partnerships, and mobilized critical resources to support delivery. Throughout her career, Ms. Keita has worked extensively on the empowerment of women and youth, inclusive growth, demographic issues, sustainable human development, addressing sexual and reproductive health, as well as gender-based violence in humanitarian settings. She focuses on achieving the programmatic aims of the UNFPA which include but is not restricted to zero preventable maternal deaths, zero unmet need for family planning and zero violence and harmful practices against women and girls.
Her work with a range of stakeholders and partners impacts the lives and wellbeing of women, children, and adolescents around the world, particularly in Africa.
Ms Keita considers the rights and choices of the 10-year old girl as central to her work and hopes to do everything possible to ensure that the adolescent girl is given all the opportunities and support required to enable her to fulfill her potential.
She has in her role in UNFPA, worked as a co-creator to build joint successes with partners and leverage innovative financing for the Sustainable Development Goals, encouraging innovation and the use of digital technologies to ensure that the youth get the level of development that they need. She believes innovation is a major game-changer to accelerate the progress of the 2030 Agenda and the importance of working with young people, so that they can fulfill their potential.
