In its resolve to assist Nigeria in the improvement of its health care system, the United State (US) government through the US Agency for International Development (USAID) is to spend about $56.3 million for the promotion of family planning and maternal healthcare in the country.
The project is to be carried out through the Expanded Social Marketing Project in Nigeria (ESMPIN) where 15 states in the federation are expected to benefit. Speaking to journalists on the project, Coordinator of the programme, Marty Bell, explained that the project was aimed at improving the health of women and children in the country, primarily by increasing the use of modern products.
Bell said: “The project will increase access to family planning, reproductive health and child health products; increase use of health products and practice of healthy behaviours, generate support from all sectors for social marketing as an important part of a total market approach and access the viability of local manufacture of key health products.”
He further observed that ESMPIN intends to act as a spur in Nigeria’s family planning strategy, adding: “It will direct provision of 23 million couples’ years of protection over the life of the project, growing the overall market for family planning in Nigeria by generating increased demand and pushing to increase the use of medium and long acting contraceptive methods that are currently in low demand that suffer from many myths, misconception and barriers to use.”
Managing Director of Society for Family Health (SFH), Dr. Bright Ekweremadu, speaking in the same vein, said the organisation will remain focus to the tenets of reproductive health, stating that the task of providing better health care system cannot be left in the hands of government alone.
Ekweremadu likewise stated that more women and children would continue to receive attention, given that they constitute the bulk of health challenges Nigeria faced.
The five year project is expected to expand the scope of family planning with the introduction of new products as well as strategies that encourage rural communities to embrace the family planning. States earmarked to benefit from the scheme include, Akwa Ibom, Bauchi, Delta, Edo, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Rivers among others.
http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/us-to-spend-56-3m-on-family-planning-maternal-health/103009/
