Keita: Family Planning is the Best Way to Fight Maternal Mortality
Barely months into assuming office as the United Nations Population Fund Country Representative in Nigeria, Dr. Diene Keita shared with Abimbola Akosile her experiences, vision and views on development issues in Nigeria, on the sidelines of an awareness c
Can you just tell us a little about yourself? I am Dr. Diene Keita, an economist and lawyer by training, 53 years old and the UNFPA Country Representative in Nigeria since July (2017). Before Nigeria, I was the UNFPA Country Rep in Democratic Republic of Congo. So, I have been privileged to serve in a big country and this is the second one and I am very thrilled to be here.
So, what lessons are you bringing from the DRC? The lesson I am bringing from the DRC is two-fold; first is complexity and diversity. DRC is a very huge country and relatively well-populated, and yet DRC has the duality of humanitarian issues and developmental issues. So what I bring is really a good knowledge of how to implement diversity within what we do, especially socio-economic issues and family planning, as well as how to reap Demographic Dividend in such a complex environment.
What are your views and tips on family planning and the existing cultural, religious challenges? I think UNFPA has this fabulous way of tackling family planning and really in doing such thing culturally. We all know that every culture, at least most of them, has issue with family planning. The only time all faith persons agree is when we have to talk about family planning, so for me the cultural approach is extremely important and yet the women and young girls’ empowerment is absolutely of essence because a woman or adolescent should be able to decide for themselves. At the end of the day, family planning is not about all these facing them, it is about giving the woman or adolescent the autonomy to decide the time she wants to have her family and the time she needs to work or rest or enjoy the health community life. So really for me, that is the stake and here in Nigeria due to the diversity it is something we are looking forward to work with. We have a very dynamic government working on it; the Ministry of Health is doing a great job, but also the other ministries because that is why I like the approach of the demographic dividend; because family planning is not health matter anymore; it is absolutely not Let me give you an example, if 13-year-old young girl, is either married too young with an old man; you know what I call old man? A 30-year-old young man is an old man compared to a 13-year-old girl; he is powerful sexually; you see what I mean? Sexually, that can ruin that girl’s life because he cannot control his actions, then he can hurt her without wanting to. This was this fabulous Nigerian movie where this young man husband obviously didn’t know how to behave to have intercourse and his young wife was 14. She was so happy to be married. She was beautiful but she was young. But the way he did it; he raped her and the woman’s life changed forever. He didn’t do it on purpose or intentionally but that woman cried forever. But that is the reality; you don’t train young men to become men, you see what I mean? So if they don’t know how to approach the young women, it becomes a disaster and this is part of the critical, sensitive issue. It is not about him coming or implement what general common sense says, because if that young man had known better, how to be more tender, that young lady, she wouldn’t have been scared. And if they had known, they would be in love today. We have so many stories about this. It is really about communication first, and as well intimate communication sometime, verbal and intimate communication. “Are you happy, are you fine?”. And he can be very crude; he doesn’t have to be very modern. And I think whatever you are, Christian, Moslem or traditional religion in this part of this world, we have that chal- lenge of making people understand. Because if you take the priest of any Catholic Church, or master of any Quranic School, people forget, they are leaders, they are very well educated. I was raised in a Convent in Rome; I spent quite some time in a Catholic school, I am a Moslem so I know both religions very well. Even sometimes at home, I sing Christian songs because I was raised in it and the Christians were so courteous with my religion. When they go to the mass, big mass, I would go, but classes I would have my private Islamic classes with my Egyptian teacher. You see, so I grew up in a world where religion was really connecting very well. My dad was the Ambassador to the Holy See so I could see the Pope every year, so I have a lot of respect for all religions; that is where I grew up. For me it is not a job; it is true belief that we can make a difference with respect to everyone. And that would be my big challenge here, because you need to approach people; you don’t want to hurt them, you just want to educate them. The meaning says quite a lot because it is very important. The only thing that is as important of health and in family planning is education. That is why we talk about a man of 30 years who cannot even approach a woman correctly; you know in the past centuries in Europe, if you read Europe history, young men were trained sexually by their dad; they would take them in an institution, elder women would let them know how to go about it. And now because parents don’t talk to their boys anymore, the boys go aside to talk to their friends, they go on YouTube and learn by themselves, and it can be very harmful. This is the kind of thing I think we should be working on.
When you are talking of education, is it formal or just sex education? Thank you; it is everything. Of course, comprehensive sex education for me is very formal, but I am talking of all education. All education because you have the people who do not go out at school but would do something called the husband school, talking about the women interest, about how to behave and the income-generating activities, how to involve the men in it, kind of husband daily school, parenting school, how many parent like me, you have young adult at home, a 20-year-old, 18, you don’t know how to communicate, it is a challenge.
They don’t even know how to communicate. I have friends of mine from the Western world, living in America, they would say, “I don’t talk to my boys, so stop talking to your boy”. So it is not only Africa that face that. So we need to educate parents, we need to educate everyone to better communicate. But as well formal education for the young girl is of utmost importance; if the young girl can stay at school longer than possible, she would, whatever happens, be better than if she doesn’t go to school, because the family wants her married, instead of being wasted or having unwanted pregnancy.
Can you talk about the Green Dot initiative that was launched recently in Abuja? I think the Green Dot is a fabulous initiative; it was launched recently and it has created centres and reference places where people, young people can get the information they need vis-a-vis family planning issues and larger sexual reproductive issues and health issues. And I think for me, this is the first country I have seen it launched really nationally in Africa and I found that very impressive. I have seen it favours the young people but the Green Dot for me is something that is very promising and we will be supporting the government and the partners to expend as much as we can and most of it - our work - is to monitor the system, to get from the users how it went, are they happy, do they want something different, and that is the thing we can help the government do that because it is a magnificent initiative and for all of us, I think it is a beacon of hope that we will reach the last mile and the last woman or young girl or young man who needs information and products.