Earlier today, September 22, 2023, we participated in the state-level dissemination of the national guidelines on state-funded procurement of family planning commodities, organized by the Cross River Ministry of Health in partnership with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). The meeting was to disseminate the established procurement criteria for family planning commodities to the state’s relevant ministries and CSOs.
The goal of the Guidelines is to standardize, document, and institutionalize the processes of forecasting, quantification, procurement, warehousing, inventory management, distribution, pipeline monitoring, service delivery, and utilization of FP commodities in the country.
The event had in attendance the Cross River State’s honorable commissioner for health, Dr. Henry Egbe Ayuk, the wife of the state governor, Mrs. Eyoanwan Bassey, and representatives from the Federal Ministry of Health, the World Health Organization, UNFPA, Marie Stopes International, the Society for Family Health, the African Girls Empowerment Network, the Girls Power Initiative, the Cross River State Ministry of Women Affairs, Humanitarian and Social Justice, among other relevant ministries, and the CSO of the State.
The introduction of the national guidelines on state-funded procurement of family planning commodities is timely as Nigeria currently accounts for 2.5 million cases of unwanted pregnancies annually and we hope that this will bring a transformative change and increase access and uptake of #BelleByChoice (modern contraception and family planning) commodities and services to flatten the curve of unwanted pregnancies among women and adolescent girls particularly those in the vulnerable and displaced settings in the State.