As part of efforts to bridge the funding gap for maternal and lifesaving commodities in Nigeria, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) last year committed the sum of $7 million to the country.
This is coming as UNFPA estimates that Nigeria would require between $ 12 Million and $16 Million to meet the national requirement for the commodities.
Executive Director of the UNFPA, Dr.Babatunde Osotimehin, reeled out these figures in an end of visit to Nigeria media parley in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital.
In a statement in Abuja, UNFPA clarified that the Executive Director did not at any time or point make mention of US$34 Billion as UNFPA expenditure on maternal and lifesaving commodities for Nigeria, as was reported by a local news agency.
The inability of Nigeria to provide sufficient funds to procure these commodities would not affect UNFPA’s contributions to Nigeria, which amounted to about US$7million for commodities and lifesaving drugs in 2015, he added.
He noted that the $12-$16 million funding requirement was small compared to the value of lives it would save.
“Nobody can place a value to life,” he observed.
He revealed that Nigeria’s Health Ministry has already agreed to budget $3 million to procuring the commodities next year.
This, he observed, was in addition to a commitment obtained at a meeting the UNFPA ED had earlier in the year with the President and the Minister of Finance on a business case for family planning whereby Nigeria will annually just increase its contributions to getting commodities for the country until such a saturation point where Nigeria will solely be responsible for getting these commodities.
He gave kudos for the level of improvement of the well-being of girls supported by the Adolescent Girls’ Initiative, given that most of the girls could not speak a word of English about two years ago.
