NPC urges FG, states, to boost investment in family planning

The National Population Commission (NPC), has urged the Federal, State and Local governments to boost investment in family planning methods to provide adequate sexual and reproductive health services in the country.

Mr Eze Duruiheoma, NPC Chairman, made the call at a news conference in Abuja to mark the commencement of the commemoration of the 2017 World Population Day (WPD) to be held on July 11.

The conference was organised in collaboration with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and other stakeholders with the theme: “Family Planning, Birth Spacing: Empowering People, Developing Nations”.

The chairman said all efforts at building social and physical infrastructure in other critical sectors of the nation would not yield any benefits unless women have unfettered access to these services.

“Private sector facilities continue to be the chief providers of contraceptive methods in Nigeria; 60 per cent of users of modern contraceptive methods obtain them from the private sector.

“I wish to seize this opportunity to renew my appeal to the federal, state and local governments to invest more in the provision of sexual and reproductive health services to the vast majority of the people.

“All the massive investments in building social and physical infrastructure, healthcare, education and other critical sectors of our national life will not yield maximum benefits unless the women and girl child have an unfettered access to sexual and reproductive information and services,” Duruiheoma said.

The chairman said some family planning methods such as condoms, helped to prevent the transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. He also said the contraceptive provided by UNFPA in 2016, had the potential to prevent 11.7 million unintended pregnancies, close to 3.7 million unsafe abortions and prevent an estimated 29,000 maternal deaths in the country.

He said in spite of these benefits, family planning has continued to receive wrong interpretations in spite of the fact that the two major religions; Christianity and Islam enjoins parents to cater for the well being of their children.

He said there was still wide unmet needs nationally and globally, stating that over 225 million women living in developing countries would like to delay or stop childbearing but were not using contraception.

He said most of these women with unmet demand for contraceptives live in 69 of the poorest countries on earth.

“Fulfilling their unmet demand will save lives by averting 60 million unintended pregnancies around the world and reduce maternal deaths by one third of the estimated 303,000 maternal deaths that occurred in 2016.

“Although modern contraceptive use has nearly doubled worldwide from 36 per cent in 1970 to 64 per cent in 2016,“ he said, “We still have a long way to go to ensure that all women enjoy their right to decide whether, when or how often to become pregnant,” he said.

The chairman called on religious, traditional and community leaders to take up the challenge of promoting the demand for the utilisation of family planning services to build a healthy society.

The conference was to sensitise the public and stakeholders on the need for more participatory, fulfilling and rewarding commemoration of the 2017 World Population Day.

The day is commemorated globally every year with the objective of creating awareness on current and emerging population issues as they impact on the quality of the population.