Local funding central to Nigeria eliminating malaria — Stakeholders

THE consensus of stakeholders is that local funding remains central to Nigeria’s ability to stem deaths arising from malaria and ensure that the disease is eliminated in the country in the years to come.

Oyo State Coordinator, Presidential Malaria Initiative for States, Dr Esther Ayandipo, speaking at a one-day meeting to pretext advocacy material on malaria, said that dearth of fund hinders the implementation of programmes for malaria elimination and control activities.

According to her, “funding to implement malaria elimination and control activity has become a challenge, so we want to ensure that we have the right content in the advocacy briefs before we commence advocacy to the key stakeholders mainly to harness resources to eliminate malaria in Oyo State.”

Advocacy Manager, Nigerian Interfaith Action Association(NIFAA), Mr  Ifeanyi Kalu stated that the sudden closure of some Malaria Action Programme for States (MAPS) 2 programme recently by international partners is a call to Nigeria to take the lead in malaria elimination and control programmes to ensure their sustainability.

According to him, “already there is a crisis. Recently some MAPS2 were closed up without any information, there is nothing the Federal government can do to stop it. It is their money, so that gap is there now. So what we need to begin to do is to reach out to key stakeholders so that we do not necessarily rely on external donors.”

Representative of the Advocacy, Communication and Social Mobilisation department at the National Malaria Elimination Programme,  Mrs Samuel Owoya  said it was important that the reviewed malaria advocacy material aligne with cultural setting and speaks for Oyo State while conforming to the global standard.

Mrs Owoya stated that the dearth of funding was a key problem with malaria elimination in Nigeria and thus the need for advocacy to shift the focus on resource mobilisation for malaria elimination from international donors to the private sector.

Oyo State Commissioner for Health, Dr Bashir Bello, in a welcome address, said that malaria remains a challenge due to the incoherent effort at its elimination while mosquitoes continue to be blamed for the disease.

Dr Bello said that malaria elimination should be multi-sectorial to ensure that efforts at eliminating the disease get to the grassroots and is sustained.

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