The Society of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, SOGON, under the Partnership for Advocacy in child and family Health at Scale, PACFaH@Scale is partnering with the Federal Ministry of Health, FMoH, and other relevant stakeholders to review the existing Family Planning, FP blueprint to include accountability framework and CSO engagement as a component in the blueprint.
SOGON-PACFaH@Scale project Director, Dr Habib Saduaki told The Health Advocate that partnership is meant to ensure the actualization of the modern contraceptive prevalence (mCPR) target of 27% for all Nigerian women of reproductive age.
‘One of the gaps we identified was the absence of the accountability framework and CSOs engagement component of the FP Blue Print. Thus, the Federal Ministry of Health through the Reproductive Health Division (under the Child and Family Health Department) sort to consult with experts, key stakeholders and development partners in the FP landscape to review the existing FP Blueprint. The outputs from this strategic meeting will snowball into the publication of the revised FP Blueprint. The outputs from these strategic meeting will snowball into the publication of the revised FP Blueprint.’ He said.
It was as part of this strategic collaboration that SOGON-PACFaH@Scale team attended series of meetings from 15th August, 2018 to 28th of August 2019 at the Federal Ministry of Health to commence the review the Nigeria FP Blueprint.
Subsequently, the stakeholders continue to meet to review the National FP situation and deliberate on lessons learned, quantitatively project National mCPR annual targets for the next five years, developed broad approaches from lessons learned and other innovations to achieve the projected mCPR targets, and to identify available resources partnerships to implement these approaches.
It was at that meeting that SOGON -PACFAH@SCALE@SCALE Project team highlighted the non-existence of accountability clause in the current Blueprint and formulated objectives and strategies on how to introduce a robust accountability mechanism in the revised FP Blueprint; which will involve the inclusion of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in the implementation, monitoring and evaluation processes of the Blueprint.
The SOGON -PAS team in conjunction with other Advocacy focused organizations, also reviewed the final draft of advocacy, accountability framework and CSOs engagement thematic area of the revised Blueprint submitted by the consultant. At the end of this meeting the RH TWG schedule the next meeting for end of September this year. It is important to note that all meetings were chaired by the Director Reproductive Health – Dr Kayode Afolabi and were held in plenary.
Meanwhile, following the validation meeting of the FP Blue print, SOGON-PAS project team will continue to follow -up with the Director of Reproductive Health, FMOH for the launch of the revised document. Already, SOGON -PAS project team have offered to support the FMOH in printing and launching of the FP blue print. In the meantime, SOGON-PACFAH@SCALE has begun the discussion to revisit the issue of AA/RM which was not captured in the final draft document.
