Health
Kwara, SFH Renew Family Planning Commitment
By Fatima Mohammed-Lawal
The Kwara Government, in collaboration with Society for Family Health (SFH), has renewed its commitment to ensuring access to quality, affordable and uninterrupted family planning services across the state for all.
Kwara Commissioner for Health, Dr Amina El-Imam, said this in Ilorin at the Kwara State 2026 Bi-annual Stakeholders’ Strategic Coordination Meeting on Family Planning Services and Coordination.
The meeting was themed: “Strengthening Family Planning Integration, Government Ownership and Accountability within Sector Wide Approach (SWAp), Maternal and Neonatal Mortality Reduction Innovation Initiative (MAMII) at State and LGA Levels”.
The commissioner said the meeting came at a critical time to renew collective commitment to ensuring that every individual and couple could make informed and voluntary decisions about timing and spacing children.
“Family planning is not merely a health intervention. It is a fundamental component of universal health coverage, maternal and child health, women’s empowerment, poverty reduction and sustainable development.
“When women and couples are able to plan their families, the benefits extend beyond the household to communities and the entire state,” she said, explaining the wider benefits.
El-Imam said planned pregnancies reduced the risk of maternal and newborn complications, improved child health and nutrition, and supported girls’ and women’s education and economic participation.
She said that Gov. AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq had recently approved funds for the United Nation Population Fund (UNFPA) basket fund for procurement of family planning commodities across facilities.
“The approval is a big step in sustaining gains in family planning by ensuring availability of commodities at health facilities,” she said, stressing the importance of consistent supplies.
The commissioner, however, noted that effective family planning services required more than commodities, saying broader support systems were necessary to achieve sustainable access and utilisation across communities.
She listed informed communities, competent and motivated healthcare providers, reliable data, strong referral systems, effective demand-generation activities and youth-friendly services as critical components of effective family planning delivery.
She also identified misconceptions and myths, fear of side effects, concerns about privacy and confidentiality, religious and socio-cultural influences and limited male involvement as barriers affecting service utilisation.
El-Imam added that stock-outs, inadequate funding, geographical barriers and gaps in quality counselling also remained challenges, requiring coordinated efforts from stakeholders to improve service delivery.
She urged stakeholders to ensure services were available, accessible and acceptable, with deliberate focus on adolescents, women in hard-to-reach communities, persons with disabilities and vulnerable populations.
In his address, Mr Michael Titus, the Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health plus Nutrition (RMNCAH+N) Communication Lead, SFH, Nigeria, emphasised the importance of child spacing.
Titus said SFH was collaborating with the Kwara Government in providing cost-effective measures to address maternal mortality in the state through improved family planning services and community interventions.
“This is reducing the deaths of mothers who die due to pregnancy complications or childbirth complications.
“We are supporting the state through this investment to make sure that many women have access to quality, lifesaving child spacing across the hinterlands.
“This also includes creating male engagement to ensure that they understand what it is, because many men don’t know really why they need to go and support their wives,” he said.
He said the meeting was a bi-annual stakeholders’ meeting involving government, traditional leaders, local government and religious leaders to deliberate and find solutions to challenges.
Titus disclosed that Kwara recorded about 70 per cent in social readiness, adding that stakeholders had shown commitment to overcoming lingering challenges affecting family planning services across the state.
Also speaking, the State Family Planning Coordinator, Mrs Bashirat Jatto, said the objective of the meeting was to present and share results of the Transition Readiness Assessment with state and LGA stakeholders.
Jatto said the meeting was also to highlight priority gaps and opportunities for aligning FP interventions with SWAp and MAMII governance, financing and demand generation, among other areas requiring attention.
Earlier, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Dr Abdullahi Taoheed, said family planning remained a critical component of Universal Health Coverage and an important public health intervention.
Taoheed said it was a key intervention for improving maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health outcomes while strengthening access to quality reproductive health services.
“The meeting provides an important platform to review progress, identify persistent gaps, strengthen coordination, and agree on practical actions to improve access to quality, affordable, rights-based services,” he said.
NAN reports that the meeting drew participants from government, development partners, civil society organisations, healthcare providers and community leaders to discuss family planning issues and interventions.(NAN)(www.nannews.ng)
Edited by Abiemwense Moru
