The Africa Health Budget Network (AHBN) has urged the Federal Government to intensitfy efforts, in its determination to achieve the Family Planning (FP) 2030 commitment.
The Coordinator, AHBN, Dr Aminu Magashi, gave the advice in a statement on Monday in Abuja.
Reports have it that the Federal Government formally launched the 2030 FP commitment on March 2022.
The Family Planning 2030 commitment, with eight focus areas, states that by the end of 2030, Nigeria envisioned a country where everyone would be able to make informed choices.
It listed adolescents, young people, population affected by crisis and other vulnerable population to, aside making informed choices, have equitable and affordable access to quality family planning and participate as equals, in society’s development.
Magashi noted that with the fast growing rate of the global population which currently stood at 8 billion and Nigeria’s population, estimated to be over 200 million, the call for concerted action on the part of the government to achieve the FP 2030, was timely.
“Nigeria’s commitment to allocate one per cent of its health budget to family planning both at Federal and State levels as part of efforts to achieve the FP 2030 require concerted efforts and innovative financing.
“This is in a bid for family planning to be adequately catered for, to all those in need of it,” he said.
The coordinator expressed worries that apart from the recent launch of documents, there had been no tangible efforts by the Federal Government to ensure the FP 2030 was achieved to put the country’s population under check.
According to him, more worrisome is the fact that majority of the over 200 million people in the country, 70 per cent of them were under the age of 30.
“AHBN Meaningful Adolescent and Youth Engagement (MAYE) Working Group, therefore, calls on the governments at all levels and other critical stakeholders to put modalities in place to ensure that the youth in the country are productively engaged.
He said this could be achieved through the provision of qualitative education and skill acquisitions, to contribute to the socio-economic growth of the country.
“It is necessary to warn here that the youthful population can be an asset or burden to the country, depending on how the government tackles issues around them.
“If not properly taken care of and given the needed attention, the youthful population can be a catastrophe, leading to all manner of insecurity challenges, including kidnapping, armed robbery and many other social vices.
“We are therefore calling on the Federal Government to maximise its bulging youthful population, by improving on the quality of and access to education.”
He argued that the ongoing strike in the education sector embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) must be addressed once and for all.
Speaking further, Magashi also urged government to make family planning information, commodities and services available and accessible to all, especially those in hard-to-reach areas.
He noted that this would curb issues like teenage pregnancy significantly.
“The Federal and State Governments should take the issue of the provision of family planning commodities seriously, by ensuring its availability free of charge in all government clinics across the country.
“This can be achieved by the payment of counterpart funding and the provision of funds for logistics by all tiers of governments,” the AHBN coordinator said.
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