SEKINAH LAWAL
A clarion call has gone to government at all levels, federal, state and local to ensure prompt and affordable access to family planning and contraception services in order to promote maternal health.
The group also urged the Federal Government to match population growth with commensurate economic growth in order to deliberately and proactively avoid the loomimg demographic doom and reap the gains of demographic dividends.
All these were arrived at at the end of the 5th Family Planning Conference held in Abuja-Nigeria.
In a communique issued at the end of the conference, participants resolved that the effort towards achieving the 27 percent target of modern contraceptive prevalence rate, mCPR, for all women must be deliberate just as the recognition of family planning as a key intervention towards ensuring quality maternal health.
Speaking to the theme of the conference;“Investments, Innovation, Inclusiveness”, organisers of the conference, the Association for the Advancement of Family Planning (AAFP) in partnership with the Federal Ministry of Health and other stakeholders called for people-centered good governance towards increased economic growth and increased delivery of quality health services.
“We must develop a strategic framework to drive improvements in data management as well as reduce cases of discrepancies, so as to enhance quality decision making in service delivery.
They also called for the involvement of the private sector in achieving all set goals.
“We must deliberately improve synergy, coordinated networking and partnerships within the health sector, towards leveraging funding opportunities and innovatively delivering services to more women and girls.”
Further more, the conference condemned what it described as objectionable and obsolete policies and laws that limit rights to family planning and health of women and girls as well as the need to subject such laws to judicial trials and pronouncements.
In addition, it was agreed upon that the federal and state governments must commit additional funding to respond to the growing unmet need for family planning across the country, including expanding and developing health insurance schemes that include comprehensive family planning services.
“There is a critical need to come up with innovative financing mechanisms to explore and access family planning-focused funding baskets including; the Global Financing Facility, the Basic Healthcare Provision Fund, State Contributory Health Insurance Schemes and the Saving One Million Lives Programme for Results.
The group also called for an end to the lukewarm attitude of some state governments towards family planning saying that investing in family planning is smart, cost-effective and life-saving, aside being critical in a country like Nigeria with young and rapidly growing population.
