The Federal Government yesterday praised the successful implementation of the Women Integrated Service for Health (WISH) project implemented by Marie Stopes International Organisation Nigeria (MSION), Options, Ipas, Planned Parenthood Federation of Nigeria (PPFN) and ThinkPlace.
The WISH project, which is a United Kingdom (UK) Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) flagship project, was implemented to support Nigeria’s progress toward universal sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in 13 Northern states from August 2018 to July 2021.
The states are Gombe, Bauchi, Taraba, Yobe, Borno, Adamawa, Sokoto, Jigawa, Katsina, Kebbi, Kano, Zamfara, and Benue with additional social marketing across Nigeria, including the FCT.
The project delivered 6.1 million couples years of protection (CYPs), 1.4 million additional family planning users, averted 1.2 million unsafe abortions, averted 2.8 million unwanted pregnancies, and prevented 16,000 maternal deaths.
Therefore, a one-year sustainability-focused extension was granted to the implementing partners to sustain the gains of the WISH project across six states Bauchi, Sokoto, Adamawa, Borno, Kano, and Jigawa.
At the National Inception Meeting of the Women Integrated Services for Health Extension Project (WISH-CE) in Abuja, the Director of Family Health at the Federal Ministry of Health, Dr Salma Ibrahim Anas said: “The WISH project was implemented in a unique manner in the past three years in Northern states that have the highest burden of maternal mortality and poor child survival, and also with the lowest uptake of family planning.
“We commend the efforts of the WISH project which was successfully implemented and which would change the outcome of sexual reproductive health in the country. It has also focused on sustainability and that caused an extension which has been granted for the coalition to continue implementation.”
The Country Director of MSION, Emmanuel Ajah said: “This extension project seeks to enhance government’s ownership of quality sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services provision, supervision, and leadership to strengthen the health system and institutionalise the government ownership and leadership in the quality of care.