Saraki: Women engine-starters to Nigeria SDGs

President of Wellbeing Foundation Africa, Toyin Saraki, said Thursday women are the “engine-starter” and “key” to Nigeria’s achieving demographic dividend and progress in Sustainable Development Goals, if they are allowed to decide for themselves. Saraki, named United Nations Population Fund’s family planning champion, said demographic dividend came with women being able to reduce the total […]

President of Wellbeing Foundation Africa, Toyin Saraki, said Thursday women are the “engine-starter” and “key” to Nigeria’s achieving demographic dividend and progress in Sustainable Development Goals, if they are allowed to decide for themselves.

Saraki, named United Nations Population Fund’s family planning champion, said demographic dividend came with women being able to reduce the total number of children they have, having an expanded working-age population and less dependence, improved investment in education, infrastructure and health care.

The wife of Nigeria’s senate president, Saraki told a briefing ahead of the fourth national family planning conference in Abuja, “Without speaking with the women of Nigeria and learning what they need, we are again deciding for them and not providing what they need.”

Among 42  million women of reproductive age in Nigeria having on average six children per woman, only 15% of them use any contraception at all—a situation Saraki said was “more burdensome” on women and their families.

“When a family has the power to choose when to have a child and how many children, they become the owners of their own destinies,” she said.

Saraki vowed to use her position to champion family planning, insisting Nigeria could not achieve its potential as a country without a strong national family planning programme.