11th October, 2017
The Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, on Wednesday in Abuja renewed the commitment of the Federal Government on funding Family Planning (FP) programmes in the country.
Adewole made this known during the interface between the government and Civil Society Organisations with other key stakeholders organised by United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
The minister was represented by Dr Adebimpe Adebiyi, the Director of Family Health in the ministry.
He dismissed allegations that nothing was allocated for the FP programme in the 2017 budget.
“We are on the last quarter of 2017 and of the N1 billion allocated for the FP programme nothing has been released, the information is not correct.
“The significant part of the 2017 of the appropriation for health has not been released.
“We have part of the 2017 appropriation that was released and the fund that is being released is being processed for onward contribution to the FP basket for the procurement of the commodities,’’ he said.
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Adewole added that there is a basket fund into which development partners and government contributes funds for the procurement of FP commodities in Nigeria.
He said the basket fund is very alive and the commodities are regularly procured, adding that is why the government inaugurated the National Family Planning Communication Plan to create more demand for the services.
Earlier, Dr Ejike Oji, the Chairman, Association for the Advancement of Family Planning (AAFP), said federal government has started making critical investment in terms of developing costed implementation plan.
Oji commended the government for inaugurating the National Family Planning Communication Plan and the green dots in the country as the centres for accessing FP services nationwide.
He said the conversation was to look at ways to enhance the collaboration between government and CSOs and issues of accountability in delivering FP services in Nigeria.