Group Canvases Budget Increase for Family Planning in Delta

The Chairperson, Advocacy Core Group (ACG), Mrs Rachael Obodo-Obunseli, has said that the budget of N25 million was not enough for family planning in Delta State.

Obodo-Obunseli stated this on Monday, September 28, 2020 when she paid an advocacy visit on Delta Ministry of Women Affairs, Community and Social Development on support for family planning in the state to mark the World Contraceptive Day.

She said, “The group came to seek the support of the commissioner and the ministry to ensure that the family planning need in the state were met.

“Currently, the state government has made a budget line of N25 million for only family planning in the Ministry of Health, and we are saying it is not enough.

“We are asking that you support the initiative and through your memos, the government will see the need to increase the funding of family planning to enable service delivery workers carry out their duties unhindered.

“It is no longer alien to speak to the adolescents on family planning and this has helped to prevent unplanned pregnancy and sexually related diseases.

“This is why we have come to use your platform; the department of women affairs and other platforms to reach out to the adolescents and to attain the family planning needs in the state.

She urged the ministry to support the advocacy on family planning to get more funding from the state government.

A Director in the Department of Women Affairs, Mrs Faith Okpohworho, noted that advocacy for family planning was service to humanity.

She said that if not for advocacy, many people would have perished in ignorance, noting that government programmes and policies had brought a lot of awareness to the people to solve their problems.

“I want to assure you that the ministry and the Commissioner for Women Affairs are receptive to policies and programmes that are meant to help our women and young people in the society.

“For the advocacy, creating awareness and sensitisation, I want to assure you that it is part of our policy and mandate to reach the people with the programmes and benefits they can get in both the urban and rural communities” she said.

On need for contraceptive, the Director said, the World Contraceptive Day was a day set aside to enlighten the public on the need to embrace contraceptive as way to properly space out the number of children and to check unplanned pregnancy.