Women’s Day: Coalition Calls For Women Friendly Policies In The Health Sector

The Coalition of Women in the Partnership for Advocacy in Child and Family Health at Scale, PACFaH@ Scale Project have called on all tiers of government in the country to recognize the special needs of women as mothers and the main rights holders for child and family health.

According to the organizations, as mothers and as the main support base of the Nigerian family, government must make adequate provisions for the health of the Nigerian women and girls.

They made the call on Monday in Ilorin the Kwara state Capital North Central Nigeria while commemorating the 2022 International Women’s Day Celebration.

While addressing Journalists, the leader of the organizations, who is also the Project Director , Women in Media, Hajiya Halima Ben Umar commended the Federal and state Governments for developing, and launching new health policies with potentially positive implications for the health of women.

However, the women leaders of the various organizations expressed concern that in the face of a shrinking revenue base to government, the health needs of women are not being prioritized as there are no assurances of cash backing for the new policies and platforms.

According to her, the Reproductive, Maternal, New-born, Child, Adolescent and Elderly Health plus Nutrition (RMNCAEH+N) multi-stakeholder partnership coordination platform and the Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHRS) Community of Practice (COP) coordination platform to support the implementation of the National Family Planning Blueprint (2020-2024) in 2021.

She added that they are pleased to note the Federal government’s plans for Family Planning 2030 recommitment and the recent launch of the National Development Plan to 2025 as well as the National Population Policy.

The organizations disclosed that they remained concerned about the absence of committed funding and action plans to tease out and implement at community level, the women friendly components of these laudable initiatives.

Against this background, she said the women in the PACFaH@Scale project, are calling on government to fund and implement women friendly policies in the health sector at the national level.

They also called on the Federal government to provide robust policy, monitoring and evaluation guidelines to states so that health sector at sub-national levels becomes the arena and shining star for gender equality in Nigeria.

Others that attended the News conference are, Dr Hadijat Olaide Raji, Representing the National President Medical Women’s Association of Nigeria; Dr Rahila Mukthar, Project Director – Medical Women’s Association of Nigeria Kano-PAS; Prof Rhoda Mundi, Population Association of Nigeria; Comrade Bunmi Lawal-Aiyedun, National Association of Pediatric Nurses of Nigeria; Pharm ljeoma Nwankwo, Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria

This year’s International Women’s Day is coming at a time when Nigerian women are calling for laws and policies to protect their rights to participate, and be included in equal measure into all aspects of sustainable national development – in political representation, in health and the economy.

International Women’s Day is commemorated every year on the 8th of March to celebrate the achievements of women in the social, economic, cultural and political areas of society. In addition to celebrating the achievements of women,

International Women’s Day is also an important day for making calls to action to address the challenges and concerns faced by women.