Bureaucratic bottlenecks, late budget approvals, and fund disbursement delays have been identified as some of the reasons affecting the availability and effective use of essential family planning supplies.
A report that assessed women’s health funding in Lagos state, titled “Women’s Health Advocacy Brief,” carried out by the Public Health Sustainable Advocacy Initiative (PHSAI), Pathfinder International, and supported by the New Ventures Fund presented to the public, indicates that the State Ministry of Health (LSMOH) approved N227,026,558 for family planning and reproductive health budget in 2023 but released only N81,578,438 of that figure.
Lagos State, with a population of over 28 million, faces significant healthcare challenges. “Women in Lagos face numerous health challenges due to inadequate healthcare resources and gender inequality.” Key concerns include reproductive health issues, heart diseases, cancers, and mental health problems,” the report stated.
Some of the key goals of the report are to increase domestic funding, strengthen advocacy platforms, reinforce
accountability, and amplify women’s
health issues through evidence-based media
advocacy.
Reacting to the outcome of the report, the Lagos State Programme Coordinator, Pathfinder International, Margaret Chichi Nkire, said at a meeting in Alausa Ikeja that the report showed there is more work to be done, going by the report presented.
While assuring Pathfinder International’s commitment to supporting the state government in ensuring improved maternal health outcomes for women and newborn health, Chichi expressed the hope that “strengthened and better accountability frameworks for women’s health programmes will be achieved in Lagos State.
“We hope to see more release of the health budget to ensure that women get better health. We hope that at the end of this project, we will be able to see increased budgeting,” Nkire averred.
Mrs. Olubukola Orukotan, Lagos State Ministry of Health, hinted that, though there are challenges, the state government is working tirelessly to address them.
“For instance, the state government has approved five (out of eight) of our proposals. We have commenced massive sensitization campaigns at various communities as efforts to improve maternal and newborn health in the State,” Orukotan explained
The Chairman of PHSAI, Barrister Ayo Adebusoye, says family planning services are crucial in improving maternal health while calling on the Permanent Secretary of Primary Health Care Board (PHCB) District 3 to create a budget line in the 2025 budget for training new family planning (FP) providers by December 2024.
The Executive Director of PHSAI, Abiodun Ajayi, added, “It is obvious that the Lagos state government has made progress in women’s health through various funding mechanisms and policies; however, “challenges like insufficient funding, human resource constraints, and cultural barriers persist.”.
He added, “Enhancing partnerships, capacity building, and advocacy efforts, alongside robust monitoring and evaluation, will help us improve women’s health outcomes.”.
“We recommend that the government increase funding. This funding will also help in allocating more resources to meet the growing demands of our population, suggesting that “the state needs to collaborate with international partners and the private sector. We know that there have been established partnerships with international funders, but there is also a need to increase collaboration.
“There is a need to strengthen monitoring and evaluation. We can’t just say we are creating and enabling structures without evaluating them to see if they are meeting the demands of the populace in the state. We also recommend cultural and religious sensitisation to address cultural barriers. We need to conduct evidence-based media advocacy to mobilise support for women’s health.” Ajayi
Julie Ekong
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