The Centre for Family and Reproductive Health Support Initiative (CFRHSI), a Benue-based advocacy working group on family planning, has appealed to Governor Samuel Ortom to approve the timely release of the 2022 budgeted Family Planning fund as well as increase domestic funding “for improved access to quality Family Planning services in the next budget cycle”.
The group which made this appeal on Thursday at the official launch of the 2021 Family Planning Budget Performance Scorecard for Benue State, noted that its appeal was coming against the backdrop of dwindling support from international donor partners and termination of the World Bank’s Save One Million Lives intervention in Family Planning.
Presenting the performance scorecard prepared with data generated locally from budget documents of the State Ministry of Health, Primary Health Care Board, State Planning Commission, partners and relevant Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), Secretary of the advocacy group, Mr. Lazarus Mom, established that the scorecard indicated areas of high, low and average performances in the 2021 period under review.
Mom maintained that the Benue State government made “good progress on target” in two areas scoring high in “Government budget allocation for family planning funding need” (up to 95.6%) and performed excellently (scoring 100.0%) in its “Expenditure on funds released from Ministry of Finance to Ministry of Health (or agency)”.
However, he pointed out that government only made “partial progress on target” in 3 areas scoring 52.9% each in both “budget allocation for Family Planning released as scheduled”, and “government expenditure on allocated Family Planning funds”, as well as earmarked N20 Naira 44 kobo as Annual General Government Expenditure on Family Planning per Woman of Reproductive Age (15-49 years).
On the negative end, he explained that the State Government performed poorly both on “budget allocation for Family Planning as a percent of allocation to health capital budget” (a tiny 1.2%) and on “budget allocation for Family Planning as a percent of allocation to health budget” (an abysmal 0.8%).
Mr. Mom who pointed out that “until 2021, there was no budget line for Family Planning in Benue State” explained that “approval for the creation of the budget line took nearly 8 years (from 2014) and series of advocacy visits to over 8 different Commissioners of Health supported by Pathfinder International.
Mom lamented that despite the allocation of 20 million naira for Family Planning in the Benue State 2022 budget, nothing had yet been released 4 months to the end of the year, and called for improved prioritization of family planning budget as well as sustainable financing from local sources.
On his part, representative of Pathfinder International, Mallam Yusuf Nuhu reiterated tge pledge to support CFRHSI and charged the group to push for policy enactment which was key to creating enabling environment for programmes to thrive.
Yusuf harped on the need to have Family Planning Champions (media personalities, religious or traditional rulers) who always advocate for the issue of family planning and add their voice to media advocacy and awareness creation on Family Planning.
Making a presentation on Financing for Family Planning Commodities he admitted that financing was challenging and proposed ways to surmount this challenge.
He charged State and FG to tap from the largely untapped huge resources in the private sector through social marketing, Public Private Partnership (PPP) and called for government and media engagement to increase the voice and visibility of the group’s advocacy to help achieve set objective.
In their separate goodwill messages, representatives of the Executive Secretary, Primary Health Care Board, Director of Public Health in the Ministry of Health, State Assembly House Committee on Health and Human Services, thanked Pathfinder and its implementing partners for developing the scorecard and assured of legislative and other support needed to apply pressure for fund release.
Other highpoint was setting up of a 5-man Committee made up of CSOs and the media for advocacy visits to key stakeholders to advance the cause of family planning in the state.
Located at Hudco Quarters High Level in Makurdi the State Capital, CFRHSI had commenced work in 2014 under the name “Advocacy Working Group”, but metamorphosed to its current name, Centre for Family and Reproductive Health Support Initiative.
Swift Media World 