By Aderogba George
Association for the Advancement of Family Planning (AAFP) said on Thursday in Abuja that it was committed to promoting family planning options acceptable to Nigerians.
Dr Ejike Oji, Chairman, AAFP, said at the association’s inception meeting in Abuja on Thursday that group planned a meeting of more stakeholders to deep family planning issues in the country.
He said the meeting, scheduled to hold in July would discuss on how to drive on the commitment Nigeria made in March 2022 with global partnership towards achieving Family Planning (FP) by April 2030.
“The meeting, FP2030 accountability framework piloting in Nigeria project is also on how we can successfully bring stakeholders together on July 29 to further discuss on how we can achieved our commitment.
“The AAFP successfully wrote and got a grant for accountability, tracking of our FP 2030 commitment for the country.
“On March 9, 2022 Nigeria made a commitment to the global partnership that in April 2030.
“The commitment was in terms of what we are going to do to improve our contraceptive prevalence ways to take it from 12 per cent to 27 per cent by 2030.
“It was made by the Nigeria government, especially on what it is going to do to guide family planning issue, this meeting is about the grant we got basically to monitor progress’’, he said.
Oji said the country had 19 per cent unmet family planning needs, saying that such figure was an indication that many Nigerians did not clearly understand issues around FP.
Mrs Geraldine Etuk, the acting National President, National Council of Women Societies (NCWS) called on women to embrace FP.
Represented by Mrs Emedolibe Nnenna, the Council Programme Officer, Etuk also called on government to create the environment that would motivate women to embrace FP.
Felicity Ike, Family Planning 2030 Nigeria Youth Focal Point, said youth were supposed to be the major stakeholders in FP because they were the most affected by unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.
According to her, FP is a key strategy which allows young persons to make informed decision and choices about themselves.
She said that FP enables the youth to plan their reproductive health, as well as get them informed about contracting diseases.
“FP is very key to helping young persons in terms of ensuring they improved on their education, they attend higher education levels and be able to space their kids, live a healthy life’’, she said. (NAN)