World Bank calls for improved health care in Nigeria

The World Bank has called for an improved health care system to help reduce the high rate of maternal mortality witnessed in Nigeria.

Mr Sudhir Shetty, co- director, World Bank 2012 World Development Report (WDR) on Gender and Equality at a video conference on Sunday to launch the report observed that Nigeria still had high rate of maternal death.

He said: “In the case of Nigeria, what is observed is that the maternal mortality is still quite high, which is also a big issue in almost all parts of Africa.

“There is a need for necessary improvement in health care delivery.

“The second issue is that female farmers have lower yield than their male counterparts and this calls for discussion on the need to improve women’s access to resources through window mechanisms, window access to productive resources, improved technology and education.”

Explaining the report, he said it was the first time that the bank devoted its WDR to gender equality.

Shetty said that the outlook observed that in the past decades, women’s and girls’ education and health level had improved greatly.He added that two-third of all countries had reached gender parity in primary education, while more than one-third of girls significantly outnumbered boys in secondary education.

According to him, there are more women than men in universities across the globe, with women tertiary enrolment rising more than sevenfold since 1970.

“Female life expectancy has increased by 20 years to 25 years in most regions in the past 50 years to reach 71 years globally in 2007 compared with 67 years for men,” Shetty declared.

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