The permanent secretary, Kaduna State Ministry of Health, Dr Aisha Sadiq, has said that Kaduna is committed to financing family planning to achieve the federal government’s 27 per cent modern contraceptive prevalence rate (MCPR) among women of reproductive age by 2024.
Dr Sadiq disclosed this yesterday in Kaduna during a Project Mid-Dessemination meeting of the Society for Family Health’s Adolescent 360Amplufy Project in partnership with the ministry and Primary Healthcare Board tagged, “Repositioning Towards Sustainable and Scalable Impact, Empowering Adolescents for a Healthier Future.”
She explained that A360 is a four-year project funded by the Bill & Belinda Gates Foundation and Children Investment Fund, led and implemented by Population Services International and the Society for Family Health in Nigeria (SFH).
According to her, the current phase of the A360 Amplify programme has placed a strong emphasis on Human-Centred Design (HCD) and integration into government health and development systems.
She said the project has helped to change the behaviour of married adolescent girls and has reduced the negative implications of maternal mortality and child mortality, stressing that Kaduna State government has already put modalities to sustain and improve the programme.
The deputy project director, A360 Amplify, Hajia Rakiya Idris, disclosed that the project tagged, “Matasa Matan Arewa” aims at improving the sexual health of married adolescent girls aged 15-19 years in the North.
She noted that the concept was first conceived in 2016 in the South-South tagged “Naija girls” and because of the peculiarity of the North, the project was tagged “Matasa Matan Arewa.”
“One unique thing about the project was the use of the systemic methodology called human-centred design (HCD) in which the adolescent married girls, are involved in co-designing of the programme strategies and activities for better implementation,” she added.
She urged the state government to domesticate the contingency project so that they can take appropriate actions on the challenges affecting them in the community by brainstorming on innovative approaches to sustain the programme.
Also, A360 Amplify Project state manager, Dr Tanimu Salisu, noted that the project has helped in strengthening human capacity through training 250 providers on C4C and Youth-Friendly Health Services (YFHS) in the state.
“The combined efforts resulted in over 420,000 girls being reached with Family Planning counseling and 370,000 girls taking up modern contraceptives for the first time.
“The project has continued to improve the human capital development of adolescent girls in Kaduna, as the programme has over 2000 graduates from the economic empowerment programme who are currently running business and catering for their families.
“We are hopeful that the state will take ownership and improve on the project to ensure that the young married girls become more informed and get access to free services for their sexual health,” he said.