West Africa: UNFPA, DFID to highlight need to boost reproductive health services in Nigeria

press release

ABUJA, Nigeria, 26 September 2016—Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, and Mark Lowcock, Permanent Secretary of the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DfID), will come on a joint mission to Nigeria from 27 to 29 September to enhance support for voluntary family planning. They will also engage with the Government to step up work in this essential effort to empower women and girls and harness the demographic dividend.

Despite various family planning programming efforts in Nigeria, its contraceptive prevalence rate has been static since 2008 and hovers around 10 per cent, alarming partners, donors and the Government. The current funding landscape indicates that DfID contributes about 50-60 per cent of total funding for contraceptives in the public health sector through UNFPA. The Government’s Cash Counterpart Contribution has been inconsistent since 2013. By 2017; there may be bigger funding gap for contraceptives, especially since Nigeria is expected to increase contraceptive prevalence rate to 36% by 2018.

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