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Poor funding is the major reason Nigeria failed to meet the pledge it made in 2012 to achieve a modern contraceptive prevalence rate (MCPR) of 27 per cent among women by 202O, health experts have said.
The family planning (FP) 2020 goal was to enable 120 million additional women and girls of reproductive age, globally, to have access to contraceptives by the year 2020.
At the dawn of the deadline, the FP 2020 target indicators show that Nigeria has only 12 per cent MCPR for women in the country.
FP advocates say the government continuously failed to meet its counterpart funding commitment for the goal thereby hindering progress.
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It is increasingly apparent that the costs of COVID-19 will be borne disproportionately by poorer segments of society, especially in lower income countries. Women, children and displaced populations have been hardest hit. This crisis – more so than other crises before – requires scalable solutions for the world’s poorest. For many countries, this presents unchartered territory.
Just over one decade ago, the world was beset by the triple threat of the Food, Fuel and Financial Crisis. Back then, scalable response options for the poorest looked quite different. To a large extent, national social safety net programs were just taking off across low income countries. Concerted efforts to build and restore human capital - i.e. the knowledge, skills and health that people need to realize their potential – were not the central part of recovery efforts. Cross-sector solutions remained a challenge. The evidence base on what works for the poorest lacking.