Secretary general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon, said he was deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Jamaican Dr Lucille Mathurin Mair.

A lifelong champion of the rights of women, she served as secretary general of the World Conference on the United Nations Decade for Women, held in 1980 in Copenhagen, Denmark, and also served as special adviser to UNICEF on women's development.

She was the first woman to be appointed, in 1982, as an undersecretary general of the United Nations.