Society for Family Health, Nigeria supported the three-day 5^th Annual Family Planning Consultative Stakeholders Meeting took place at Transcorp Hilton, Abuja from the 11-13^th September, 2017 in collaboration with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), DFID, USAID, Bill and Melinda Gate Foundation and other health development partners.

Since 2013, these dialogues have been set up rallying stakeholders by convening meetings on annual basis discussing health and non-health benefits of the national family planning FP programme as well as dedicating and committing all effort to decreasing mortality rate, maternal and infant morbidity in the country.

This year’s theme: Investing in Family Planning: Key to achieving the sustainable development goals in Nigeria. Majorly, it is aimed at developing a work plan for the nation, this action is deemed necessary to proffering an effective population management solution.

The meeting was declared open by the Minister of State for Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire who urged all stakeholders – government, youths, traditional rulers, religious leaders and private sector, all of which were ably represented at the event to make strong and successful deliberations that will to aid fast track the integration of FP and Child spacing programs into Nigerian Health Development Plan.

Stakeholders were given opportunities to provide updates on FP programs in Nigeria including achievements, challenges, lessons learnt in the last year. Society for Family Health, Nigeria presented on its Family Planning and Reproductive Health programs, such as the successfully concluded ESMPIN project and presently ongoing, Women’s Health Project and Adolescent 360 project. These are projects that targets providers in the private and public sectors, women (and men) of reproductive age as well as youths and adolescents. Through the ESMPIN project, SFH generated 15,939,407 CYPs. 53,747 Proprietary Patent Medicine Vendors have been trained on Family Planning and Maternal Child Health products and services amongst all other laudable Family Planning success stories.

Being a foremost social marketing organization, at the panel discussions SFH provided updates on the possible measures that can be adopted to strengthen supply chains to deliver family planning commodities in Nigeria.  Jane Adizue, Area Sales Manager, SFH Nigeria said “we need more private sector themed training opportunities” she added ”going forward, planning and . SFH also markets and distributes a wide range of contraceptive mix which were available at the exhibition stand and all inquiries were all attended to.

The event also witnessed the launch of a new Family Planning Logo, and simple green dot which signifies that for any private or public facility where this logo is seen, family planning services is accessible, available and affordable. Other documents were also launched, which are geared towards improving FP programming; National Family Planning Communication Plan (2017-2020); National Condom Strategy (2017-2021), Business case to support family planning funding in Nigeria, and Facility Assessment for Reproductive Health Commodities and Services in Nigeria. Also, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed by the Nigerian government to institutionalize basket funds for family planning campaigns thus, improving the health status of women and children in Nigeria.

By: Ugoh Nkiruka Henrietta