By Muhammad Amaan
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has called for more priority attention to Family Planning (FP) programmes in Nigeria.
Head of Liaison Office of UNFPA, Dr Abigail Msemburi made the call at the ongoing 8th Nigeria Family Planning Conference 2024 holding in Abuja.
She said prioritising family planning programmes and activities would make Nigeria scale down the rate of maternal mortality rate, among other gains.
Dr Msemburi stressed the need for the private sector and governments at state and local levels to do more in financial support to family planning activities.
“We believe the private sector has a lot to contribute toward driving the family planning crusade in the country, especially in the area of innovation and awareness.
“The private sector can partner government, especially at the local levels to tackle the problem of social norms, which is a big challenge in advancing family planning programmes,” she said.
Dr Anne Adah-Ogoh, the Director, Private Sector Health Alliance of Nigeria, said at the first plenary session of second day of the Family Planning Conference that there was need for active private sector involvement in advancing family planning activities.
She described the private sector as free traders in pushing family planning agenda forward.
“As an organisation, we work with government at the centre to discuss production of commodities because what is being used presently are largely imported.
“We have mobilised money to extend the production of Family Planning commodities in the 36 states and 774 local government areas of the country,” she added
On her part, Dr Abimbola Agbejule, the Head, Corporate Sustainability, Wema Bank, Lagos, said the bank has evolved a financial inclusion policy for women to help address challenges facing women.
According to her, women of childbearing age now enjoy the option of opening an account with N1,000 to help them tackle some problems.
Agbejule also said that the bank has a programme codenamed “Ireti” to tackle the problem of breast cancer and urged women to explore opportunities therein.
