The decision of the United Kingdom to withdraw the annual £3 million into the basket fund for Family Planning (FP) commodities of Nigeria will expose millions of women in the country to maternal death, the National President of the Medical Women Association of Nigeria, Dr Minnie Oseji, has said.
In a statement in Abuja on Tuesday, Oseji said the decision by the UK’s government came when Nigeria launched a new Family Planning Blueprint (2020-2024) on 12 October 2020.
“Nigerian women could only expect one-fifth of this sum for 2021, with no certainty about future funding. So, Nigeria is facing an 80 percent cut from the UK government’s contribution to the procurement for FP commodities. This is coming at a time when families are increasingly unable to meet the out-of-pocket expenditure for commodities, cannulas, and cough syrup,’’ she said.
“We the 23 civil society organizations of the Partnership for Advocacy in Child and Family Health at Scale project, join with the maternal health community of Nigeria to call on the UK government to rethink this ill-timed and harmful decision to Nigerian women, we also recognize the opportunity in the moment for the Nigerian Government,” she said.
She, however, called on the Nigerian government to step in and fill the gap to prevent the negative consequences poor funding of family planning could cause in the country.
