Some nongovernment organizations, including civil society groups and coalitions, have written the Nigerian health minister demanding funds are secured and released for family planning.
The letter comes ahead of the Family Planning 2020 Conference in London on Monday.
The groups said Nigerian government met only 11% of its standing pledged to provide $3 million (N9.45 million) a year for purchase of family planning commodities.
That’s in addition to another $8.35 million (around N2.6 billion) for life-saving maternal, newborn, and child health commodities.
Civil society organisations, who co-signed the letter, said current spending was “insufficient” to help Nigeria achieve a goal to ensure up 36 in 100 people who need family planning get access to modern contraception methods by 2018.
Up to N900m ($3.17m) is allocated for procurement of family planning commodities in the 2017 budget.
The groups have demanded a memo to request for the timely release of the appropriated funding for family planning commodities.
They also demand the health ministry to develop innovative funding mechanism that “brings the federal government financial support in one basket with the development partners” to make financing for family planning commodities sustainable.
They also call on the health ministry to deepen collaboration with the ministries of women affair, information, youth and sports to make room for the voices of young people.
“We the CSOs working in the nation’s health sector have experienced a tremendous turn-around following the commitment of the Health Minister to transparent and accountable Ministry of Health” Dr Aminu Magashi Project Director Community Health and Research Initiative (CHR) and coordinator Africa Health Budget Network (AHBN) said in the letter.
