The Federal Government has launched new birth-control policy, stressing the need for urgent measures to address Nigeria’s high fertility rate, through expanding access to modern contraceptive methods across the country.
Nigeria’s population is projected to hit 400 million by 2050 according to the United Nations.
As Nigeria joins the rest of the world to observe the World Contraception Day, experts have called for urgent action on unwanted and underage pregnancies to check the rising rate of unsafe abortion in the country.
They gave the warning in a statement jointly issued on Wednesday.
The Programme Director of Development Communications Network (Devcoms), Akin Jimoh, noted that the majority of young people in Nigeria are not empowered with quality information to make informed decisions about their reproductive health.
The Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, has said that Nigeria, in collaboration with partners and the private sector, has set a target to increase contraceptive uptake among Nigerian women to 27 per cent by 2020.
Adewole said this at the Family Planning Summit in London, United Kingdom, co-hosted by the UK Government, the United Nations Population Fund and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in close partnership with FP2020.
