When NIPSS, NGOs brainstormed on family health, national security

Owing to the poor child and family health indices and the fear of inadequate budgets for 2016, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and top executives from ministries and parastatals were convened by the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru to dialogue on the public health threat to national security.

The workshop brought together over 40 senior stakeholders to plan, dialogue and chart an effective course towards making adequate and effective use of funding for child and family health in the country. It was attended by the all-Nigerian coalition of civil society groups, under the Partnership in Advocacy for Child and Family Health (PACFaH) in Nigeria.

The participants comprised eight leading NGOs such as the Health Reform Organization of Nigeria (HERFON); the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria; and the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC). The partnership of NGOs, anchored by the development Research and Projects Centre (dRPC) conducts advocacy in routine immunization; nutrition; childhood killer diseases; and family planning.

The workshop brought together PACFaH NGOs including permanent secretaries, directors and deputy directors from the Federal Ministry of Health, the National Primary Health Care Development Agency and senior officials from Bauchi, Kano, Kaduna, Nassarawa, Niger and Lagos states in interactive sessions. It was also an attempt to use primary health as panacea to tackling insecurity in the country.

In a welcome address, Dr. Muhammad Muhammad Saleh, Project Director of PACFaH, on behalf of , said: “Building on our historical and professional relationship with key government institutions, notably the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, the need to strengthen collaboration for leadership development enhancement among civil servants and CSOs working in the areas of child & family health became more evident and of paramount importance to dRPC for NIPSS to conduct a 3-day leadership development interactive program for selected senior civil servants in federal and state ministries, departments and agencies in the states of Bauchi, Kaduna, Kano, Niger, Nasarawa, Lagos and Oyo.”

He explained that Nigeria over the past few years has recorded some important milestones among which are key policy and guidelines development and reviews. He noted that the successes wouldn’t have been achieved without interplay of the various competencies and skills as leaders and stakeholders’ in different fields of endeavours.

In his remarks, the Director General of NIPSS, Professor Tijjani Bande, called for improved data quality, accuracy and coordination of national level health data by government agencies.

Head of NIPSS Consult, Dr. Ibrahim D. Choji, said the programme was designed to be a continuous one and to cover the country at large.

According to him, the programme was also organized in order to bridge the gap in terms of leadership and policy implementation and also to better understand what happens at the governmental level and at the grassroots level.

“The NGOs are the ones who are at the grassroots while the policy makers are seated in the offices and developing the policies. So, the essence is for these two groups to meet and then discuss the challenges of family health and so on. Some of the problems associated with similar workshops again are that ideas and information on family health, family planning, nutrition, immunization, and others are hidden in the book rather than making it to penetrate to the grassroots. And the facilitators for the implementation usually are supposed to be the NGOs. So we are expected to use the workshop to bring the two groups together to look at the problems generally and see how we can effectively marry policy with practice,”Choji said.

He allayed peoples’ fears on the security challenges in the North having the tendency to limit their efforts and potential achievements, saying the security threats have greatly reduced and lots of trainings are going on across many states in the region.

At the end of the three day workshop, NGOs and government executives worked out modalities for improved responsiveness to child and family health advocacy.