Centre for Family and Reproductive Health Support Initiative (CFRHSI) in Benue State has appealed to the state government to ensure the speedy release of the N20 million budgeted for Family Planning (FP) activities in 2022 budget. It said doing so will facilitate access to family planning commodities, especially in the hard-to-reach communities.
This is even as the spokesperson for the group, Lazarus Mom also called on the state government to ensure the timely release of budgetary allocation for FP to enable the group carryout its activities for the year.
Mom who made the call during the launch of Benue State 2021 FP Budget Performance Scorecard in Makurdi, the state capital lamented that up till now, the N20 million that was budgeted for FP for the year 2022 was yet to be released.
While applauding the Benue State government for finally creating and approving a budget line for family planning, Mom emphasized that a budget for FP can help to stop the high increase in maternal and child mortality.
“For the past eight years CFRHSI had consistently been advocating for the creation of a budget line for FP in the state and it was finally created in 2021. Before now whatever allocation that was meant for FP was routed through Reproductive Health,” he said.
On his part, representative of Pathfinder, Nuhu Yusuf stressed the need to engage government, decision makers as well as the media to ensure the success and workability of the scorecard.
He enjoined the group to continue to carryout advocacy visit to all stakeholders so as to ensure the timely release of budgetary allocation for FP programmes in the state.
