Coordinator, Africa Health Budget Network (AHBN), Dr Aminu Magashi, says that 88 per cent of married women in the country do not use contraceptives.
Magashi, who is also a board member, Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (PMNCH), said this on Tuesday in Abuja, during a review of the fertility and family planning component of the 2018 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS).
Nigeria made a commitment under the FP2020 signed in July 2017 to reach a Modern Contraceptives Preventative Rate (MCPR) of 27 per cent by 2030.
Magashi, who also spoke on the national family planning blueprint, described it as “clog in the will to achieving the national family planning goals.”
He said: “The family planning blueprint contains a vague commodity supply strategy, though the implementation of the policies mostly conducted at the state level.”
He advised the media and Civil Society Organisations to hold governments at all levels accountable.
The coordinator explained that the implications of not catering for reproductive health ranged from economic to security challenges.
He noted that “reproductive health decreases along the line of decreasing education level, which means that less-educated individuals are less likely to seek family planning services.”
The Total Fertility Rate (TFR) was highest in the Northwest, with 6.6 children per woman and lowest in the South, with 3.9 children per woman, Magashi explained.
The 2018 NDHS, the sixth demographic health survey in Nigeria since 1990, interviewed a nationally representative sample of 40,427 households for the survey.
