By Emiene Erameh, Allwomen

Read the full story on Allwomen

Faith leaders have called on the federal government to take ownership of Family Planning campaigns in Nigeria in order to move it away from being donor driven.

The faith leaders spoke at the International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP) 2025 Round Table Community Conversations which held on the sidelines of the 8th Nigerian Family Planning Pre-Conference 2024.

Alhaji Sani Umar Jabbi, who is the chairman Board of Trustees of Association for the Advancement of Family Planning (AAFP), in his remarks at the meeting said this has become necessary in order to address concerns by members of local communities that FP is a plan to depopulate Nigeria by western powers.

Alhaji Jabi, said if Nigeria takes ownership at the national level, it will encourage local communities to become more actively involved, and those on the front lines currently promoting FP will not be seen as sell outs.

Dr Ashiru Ajoke Sariyu, Chairman Interfaith Public Health Advocacy Lagos (IPHAL) in her submission called for a way of incentivizing the campaigns in order to keep up the momentum.

Some of the recommendations of the faith leaders to make ICFP 2025 a success at the sub-national level include

-Identifying a theme that resonates with religious beliefs,

-Acculturate traditional method into the modern method to bring about wider acceptability.

-Exchange programs which help expose religious leaders to what is working in other communities.

– Creating a forum for state actors to invite stakeholders for meetings.

-Making provision for faith leaders to attend virtually in order to improve equity of access.

-Transmission of conference in local language and where that is not possible, engaging local rapporteurs to translate recorded meetings into local languages.

-Have religious leaders open large plenary sessions in Bogota with prayers that contextualize FP.

-FP should be prominent as a subject in the curriculum of training for religious leaders.

Stay tuned for more community-driven, community-inspired reporting from the 8th Nigerian Family Planning Conference, taking place December 3–6, 2024.