Mrs Toyin Saraki's inspiring speech at the MamaYe Day 2017

March 2nd 2017 was this year's MamaYe Day celebration and we were honored and inspired by the presence of Her Excellency Mrs. Toyin Saraki.

Commemorating 2017 MamaYe Day: “Maternal and Newborn Health: Making Health Budgets Work”

I am indeed honoured to be here today, and to share this important and powerful moment with you all, on such a formidable celebration as the 2017 MamaYe Day. Since its launch in 2013, I have been continuously inspired and moved by the progress that this campaign has made in reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health (RMNCAH) across Africa, and I will like to implore us all to draw upon the past successes to look confidently upon our future goals and aspirations, with the most notable and pressing being improving the allocation, efficiency and accountability of health budget commitments and processes in Nigeria.

With regards to advocacy to ensure that Nigeria’s health budgets function efficiently to deliver universal health coverage, I will like to share with you, the progress of the 8th National Assembly’s Primary Care Revitalisation Support Group, PHCRSG, as mandated by over 72 CSO’s and NGO’s which I am very humbled and grateful to serve as Chair and Champion, with Dr Benjamin Anyene as Co-Chair, the membership of which includes the ONE Campaign, and many other highly respected organisations here present, and which has been joined by the global Development Partners Group-DPG.

This PHCRSG Group followed quickly after a public hearing convened by the National Assembly House of Representatives, through its Committee on Healthcare Services, for the Revitalisation of Primary Healthcare in Nigeria to Avert a Disaster in the Health Sector of our dear country. As a lot of us will recall, this held late last year, under the distinguished leadership of Honourable Mohammed Usman and Honourable David Ombugadu, respectively. It is a task I take very seriously, and I must commend you all for the support you have rendered, we have had several meetings and consultations, since then, including with local and global stakeholders and development partners.

Surely, one can’t help but reiterate the importance of primary healthcare (PHC) in the delivery of health outcomes for our people, including strengthening health and health-related systems. We know that an efficient and effective PHC systems is one that can cater to between 70-80% of the healthcare and health services needs of people, and as close to the people’s living and working conditions and locations as possible as we know that the battle to deliver universal health coverage, with quality efficient care to jeep our citizens well, and strengthen largely absent referral systems to higher tiers when they are unwell, will be won, or lost, at the primary health level, which is closest to the people.

This is why, as multilaterals, bilateral and expert organisations in the field of health and development, the importance of your contributions to our cause cannot be overemphasised, as we seek an inclusion of the Basic Healthcare Provision Fund in the statutory transfers, as generated from at least 1% of the Consolidated Revenue Fund in the (CRF), which, from current expectations of revenues for 2017, stand at 49 billion naira. This is in line with Nigeria’s National Health Act, and we must also strive for improvements in the budget proposals for immunisation, nutrition, HIV/AIDS, family planning, as well as provisions for the personnel, overheads and operational budgets of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).

Partners like yourselves bring in decades-long experience of working in Nigeria and around the world. Besides your technical expertise ad fund sources, you have shown us how to work with governments, the private sector and the civil society, to bring about the most effective and efficient outcomes for our interventions, your organisations and institutions have been a part of this cause, since the Alma Ata Declaration of 1978, and throughout the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) era.

As we make progress into the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) era, even against a background of a struggling Nigerian economy, I have no doubt in my mind that you all are one of our most important assets, studies have shown that investments in health that leads to an increase in life expectancy by 1 year can generate up to $19 billion to the economy, we need you, and we will continue to come to you for your support, for the revitalisation of PHC in this dear country of ours. To this end, I am very excited that MamaYe serves as a common rallying point for all of us.

I have been privileged to lead our home-grown “Made in Nigeria” Wellbeing Foundation Africa (WBFA), for over twelve years, and in all our advocacy, healthcare and health promotion interventions, we have prioritised the importance of impact at the most basic level - the community.

Our client-held personal health records (PHRs) were developed in collaboration with the World Health Organisation, the Federal Ministry of Health of Nigeria, and other partners. This booklet was influential in the roll-out of the Midwives Service Scheme (MSS), many years ago, reaching primary healthcare centres across Nigeria, and placing the skilled midwives, whose unique capacities and capabilities I have committed to champion, as Global Ambassador for the International Confederation of Midwives, in over 136 countries, at the heart of public health solutions, for reproductive maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health, and nutrition, through advocating for adoption of ICM’s Midwifery Services Framework.

Recently, the World Bank and the WHO endorsed the Wellbeing Foundation Africa’s Personal Health Records at the Measurement and Accountability for Health Summit in Washington DC, including it in the Roadmap document. We have gone further to develop other health stationary and digital tools for use in healthcare facilities.

The same can be said of our safe delivery kits, the now ubiquitous Mamakit, which helps to provide the essential tools to take a delivery, keeping mother and baby safe and healthy.

Recently, we have deployed the MamaCare Antenatal and Postnatal Programme that helps healthcare facilities with health promotion and educational classes, supporting expectant and new mothers through the life-changing experience of pregnancy and childbirth. Through midwives, we ensure that our women are well informed and well prepared, and the programme has reached over 200,000 women across Nigeria, in less than 18 months.

As we progress with hard work and all our collaborative efforts, we must come together and work together, and we must continue to support MamaYe and Evidence for Action. We must ensure that midwives are central to our health systems, that they are respected and given the correct salary and training; they deserve the highest forms of gratitude. We mist also strengthen our primary healthcare systems and reach our health budget goals, in line with the Abuja Declaration of 2001, which recommends at least 15% of national budgets for health, and the recent Addis Ababa Declaration.

A stronger primary healthcare system and smarter budget spending will lead to a stringer, fairer and healthier society.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria. And to echo the emotive truism, that a healthy mother will deliver a healthy nation for good, that “Iyaniwura” – a mother is worth more than gold, let us make our health budgets work for our mothers, their newborns, their children, their families, communities, and our nation. Allow me to end by saying…MamaYe!

Amen!"

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