Targets increased funding, accountability on maternal, child health
ABUJA – Pursuant to recent approval of the Global Financing Facility (GFF) for Every Woman Every Child Investors Group which unanimously approved the Civil Societies’ Engagement Strategy in the operations of the GFF, Nigeria at the weekend constituted its CSOs working group for the body.
The engagement strategy, approved on 24th April this year, will strengthen the participation of CSOs at global, regional and country level in GFF. The decision was taken during the 5th GFF Investors Group Meeting at Willard Intercontinental Hotel, Washington, D.C.
Members of the Nigeria’s GFF CSOs working group were carefully selected from different civil society organizations working in the nation’s health sector including the media.
Speaking at the inauguration of the group in Abuja, Chairman of the Health Sector Reform Coalition (HSRC), Dr. Ben Anyene, said the global GFF CSOs working group is supported by the United Nations (UN), World Health Organizations (WHO) and the World Bank.
He decried poor state of health in Nigeria. “It is worth noting that the burden of disease in Nigeria is very high and 70 per cent of these are at the Primary Health Care (PHC) level, a great challenge for every women and child in Nigeria. According to 2015 WHO report, neonatal death rate is 33.3/1000 live births and maternal mortality ratio is 814/ 100,000 live births. “This shows that the maternal mortality ratio in the country has gone up…More worrisome is the fact that if there is no rapid intervention in these deaths, the statistics might drastically increase, causing a destabilizing impact in the wider society and national well-being,” he said.
Anyene charged members of the team: “Apart from your collective work through GFF CSOs, it is expected that your membership will further equip your institutions and organizations with relevant expertise and skills relevant for resource mobilization and programme ownership.
“The Nigeria GFF CSOs working group is a strong group that will support the advocacy for the implementation of the GFF investment case, national healthcare financing, equity and strategy policy – a strong group that will support the implementation of CSOs engagement strategy in Nigeria.”
The GFF is a multi-stakeholder partnership that supports country-led efforts to improve the health of women, children, and adolescents by acting as an innovative financing pathfinder to accelerate the efforts to reach the 2030 goals for women’s, children’s, and adolescents’ health; and financing high impact, evidence- and rights-based interventions to achieve measurable and equitable results;
Others are: building inclusive, resilient systems and increasing domestic financing over time to sustain the gains and ensure that all women, children, and adolescents have access to essential healthcare, contributing to universal health coverage; and filling the financing gap by mobilizing additional resources from public and private sources, both domestic and international, and making more efficient use of existing resources.
The goals of the, GFF, launched by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim, at the Third International Financing for Development Conference in July 2015, is to accelerate global efforts to end preventable maternal and child deaths and improve the health and quality of life of women, children, and adolescents by 2030.
Housed at the World Bank, the GFF is a key financing platform of the United Nations Secretary-General’s updated Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health (2016-2030), supported by the Every Woman Every Child global movement, and of the SDGs. Only by working together can we expedite progress.
The GFF seeks to help fill a funding gap of US$33.3 for RMNCAH in high-burden, low- and lower-middle-income countries, which amounts to US$9.42 per capita per year and thus prevent an estimated 3.8 million maternal deaths, 101 million child deaths, and 21 million stillbirths in high-burden countries by 2030.