MSI Nigeria Reproductive Choices says it is scaling up access to family planning and reproductive health services across the country through direct service delivery, demand generation, and strengthened community partnerships.

Chibuike Utaka, head of marketing and communications, MSI Nigeria Reproductive Choices, disclosed this in an interview on Monday in Abuja.

Mr Utaka said that the organisation was committed to providing women and girls with choices that safeguarded and met their reproductive health needs.

He explained that as a leading provider of family planning and reproductive health services, the organisation directly operated six model medical centres and provided support to about 6,000 public health facilities across Nigeria.

He noted that health promotion and demand generation were at the core of MSI’s work, combining advocacy, community mobilisation, and media engagement.

”Without demand generation, it will be difficult to deliver services. That is why we work closely with religious leaders, traditional rulers, and policymakers to shift negative norms and drive acceptance of reproductive health choices across communities,” he said.

He noted that social norms remained one of the biggest barriers to the uptake of reproductive health services across Nigeria.

“Negative gender, cultural, or religious norms are not things you can change overnight. They take time. But through behavioural change communication and other health promotion interventions, we are gradually driving positive shifts.

”That is why this year we increased awareness of gender and social norms and deployed various approaches to addressing them. As part of our work, we plan to train about 3,000 religious and traditional leaders to help shift harmful gender and cultural norms,” he added.

Mr Utaka explained that the training would equip the leaders with tools to challenge harmful norms and misconceptions as well as promote positive messages in mosques, churches, and community gatherings.

He reaffirmed MSI Nigeria Reproductive Choices’ commitment to working with government, community structures, and the media to strengthen health systems and expand access to sexual and reproductive health services for Nigerian women and girls.

He revealed that MSI Nigeria Reproductive Choices, which began operations in 2009 on the invitation of the Federal Ministry of Health, had consistently partnered with the government to advance reproductive health policies.

”This year alone, we have contributed to at least three national and state-level policy developments,” he said.

(NAN)