The federal government has set aside $4 million to procure contraceptives and other facilities necessary to ensure that maternal health is given adequate attention.
Making this known during the United Nations Summit on Maternal Health in New York on Wednesday, wife of the Senate President, Mrs Helen Mark, who represented Nigeria’s first lady at the event, said that the money would be used to procure contraceptives that will boost the reproductive health programme.
Mrs Mark noted that the fund would take care of the urgent need for an effective supply of contraceptives, medicines and equipment, which is of critical importance to reproductive health in Nigeria, and said that there was still much to do for 35 million women of reproductive age in Nigeria where the rate of fertility, maternal and infant deaths were high, while the use of modern contraceptive methods was low.
“Nigeria has some of the worst maternal and child mortality records in the world and also one of the highest fertility rates and one of the lowest contraceptive use - presently at only 10 per cent - as well as the unmet contraceptive need of over 20 per cent.
“With these abysmal figures, we could not achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), let alone the ambitious developmental targets we have set for ourselves for the near future,” she said.
In his speech, the executive director of the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA), Dr. Osotimehin, called on the 12 countries to put resources in their budget to meet the needs of their women and girls.
“UNFPA will work with you to provide them with education, opportunities and access to information and services, including reproductive health commodities, so that each young girl will be a multiplier, and will add value to the world in which she belongs,” he said.
“As of October 31, the world will have seven billion people, out of which 1.8 billion are young people, and 90 per cent of them live in developing countries. That implies that one billion young women are actively seeking the information and services we are talking about here,” Osotimehin added.
The 12 ‘Stream One’ countries in the Global Programme are Burkina Faso, Haiti, Ethiopia, Laos, Mali, Madagascar, Mongolia, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.
Dramatic increases in the use of modern methods of contraception are widely reported by participating countries. In Niger, the contraceptive rate increased from five per cent in 2006 to 21 per cent in 2010.
Access to appropriate methods is improving. In Nicaragua, the percentage of service delivery points offering at least three modern methods of contraception increased from 66.6 per cent in 2008 to 99.5 per cent in 2010. In Ethiopia, the increase was from 60 per cent in 2006 to 98 per cent last year.
Country-driven initiatives include training and supply of computers for stronger supply delivery in the national health system, awareness campaigns and advocacy for national policies, strategies and dedicated lines in national budgets for contraceptives.
The First Lady of Sierra Leone, Sia Nyama Koroma, noted that support through the programme had increased the uptake of family planning and other reproductive health programmes, such as fistula activities and the screening of patients for breast cancer.
“Collectively, we are changing the face of maternal and child mortality in Sierra Leone,” she said.
http://leadership.ng/nga/articles/4911/2011/09/09/nigeria_votes_4m_contraceptives.html
