Health
9th Family Planning Conference Targets Stronger Domestic Funding
By Aderogba George
Organisers of the 9th Nigeria Family Planning Conference are calling for increased domestic funding and stronger partnerships to tackle declining donor support and Nigeria’s unmet family planning needs.
Dr Ejike Oji, Chairman of the conference’s Local Organising Committee, said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Saturday.
Oji, also Chairman, Management Committee of the Association for the Advancement of Family Planning (AAFP), said the conference would hold from Nov. 30 to Dec. 4 in Abuja.
He said the conference would promote cross-regional learning and collaboration among the federal, state and local governments.
Oji said organisers were also seeking stronger public-private, partner-to-partner, donor-to-donor and intergovernmental partnerships.
He said the approach had become necessary as donor funding declined amid geopolitical tensions and competing global priorities.
“We now want to look inwards. We are making sure that this conference becomes a very strong deflection point in domestic resource mobilisation,” he said.
Oji said regional platforms, including the West African Health Organisation, would participate in the conference.
He added that health ministers from African countries would also be invited through the Gates Institute.
Oji said discussions were ongoing with the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) to bring its regional director and country representatives from across Africa to the conference.
He said about 13 subcommittees had been established to coordinate various aspects of the conference.
Oji added that organisers were developing a mechanism to track implementation of recommendations and resolutions from the conference.
“The aim is to make sure that we meet the objectives and outcomes of the conference,” he said.
He urged prospective participants to submit abstracts through the conference website, saying submissions opened on July 30 and would close on Sept. 30.
Oji also encouraged participants to monitor the website for registration updates and take advantage of early-bird registration.
On the importance of family planning to Nigeria’s development, Dr Okai Haruna-Aku, Executive Director, Planned Parenthood Federation of Nigeria (PPFN), said the country continued to face a high unmet need for family planning.
Haruna-Aku, also a member of the AAFP Management Committee, said high maternal and child mortality and morbidity remained barriers to improving quality of life.
He said family planning was among the most cost-effective interventions for improving maternal and child health and supporting population development.
“Even if we say resources are very small now or very far-fetched, these family planning conferences we are planning every two years provide recommendations that are taken to policymakers,” he said.
Haruna-Aku said adolescent sexual and reproductive health also required greater attention, particularly through family-life and health education.
He urged the Federal Government and other stakeholders to implement conference recommendations to improve reproductive health outcomes.
He said stronger partnerships among stakeholders were essential to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly SDG 17 on partnerships.
Haruna-Aku also raised concern over shortages of family planning commodities, calling for sustained efforts to improve access.
He expressed hope that stronger government commitment and partnerships would improve reproductive health outcomes in Nigeria. (NAN) www.nannews.ng
Edited by Tosin Kolade
