The International Development Research Centre (IDRC), a Canadian government agency , says it is contributing 2.6m Canadian dollars ($1.9m) to the funding of a maternal and child health programme in Nigeria and in five other West African countries – Ghana, Mali, Senegal, Benin and Burkina Faso.
A meeting of health ministers from ECOWAS member countries has kicked off in Abuja.
The meeting, which is held annually, is organised by the West African Health Organisation (WAHO).
Speaking with journalists at the ECOWAS secretariat on Tuesday, Kofi Busai, director of primary health at WAHO, said this year’s meeting is looking at ways to reducing maternal mortality in the region.
A girl who goes to school and stays in school till about 18, according to Prof. Babatunde Osotimehin, executive director, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), “is a better mother than a girl who has a child at 10.”
Osotimehin, a former Health Minister in Nigeria, spoke last week when he took his public enlightenment campaign against child marriage to Kano “so that the age for marriage is shifted at least to 18.”
