Civil Society Organizations in Niger State have assured that over 2,500 maternal deaths, 90,000 abortions and 250,000 unintended pregnancies can be averted if the state health Costed Implementation Plan is implemented.
The coalition of CSOs under the Partnership for Advocacy in Child and Family Health (PACFaH@Scale) made this disclosure on Saturday during a press conference in Minna to commemorate the World Population Day.
In his remarks, leader of the Coalition, Dr. Aliyu Yabagi Shehu, urged government to keep to its commitment to increase Contraceptive Prevalence Rate from 6.6 per cent to 25 per cent by 2020 with a state vision for family planning in the Niger State Costed Implementation Plan.
According to Shehu: “The CIP interventions if implemented is expected to avert 250,000 unintended pregnancies, 90,000 abortions and 2,500 maternal deaths within 2018 to 2020.
“This will create demographic dividend that boosts economic growth and breakout from the cycle of poverty.”
Shehu stressed on the need for the state government to do more as regards increased funding and access to family planning services and reducing inequalities.
Shehu, who is the Niger State Coordinator of the Center for Communication and Reproductive Health Services lamented how the budgetary allocation of family planning in the 2019 budget has fallen by 75 per cent, stating that this has raised the concern of CSOs over government’s 2020 family planning commitments.
He then, on behalf of the CSOs, called on the state government to show more commitment toward tackling the rising population growth by ensuring that people in communities have access to healthcare information, family planning contraceptives and ensure the appropriation and timely release of funds for family planning services.
In her remarks, the Niger State Family Planning Coordinator, Nurse Dorcas Talatu Abu, said that family planning is a strategy that will reduce population explosion and maternal mortality, stressing on the need for the people to embrace child spacing and family planning.
Abu said: “Family planning is the only solution that can be used to solve population explosion.
“There are consequences in not funding family planning.”
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