TCI Promises To Intensify Family Planning Campaign

The Change Initiative (TCI), a United States-based urban reproductive health organisation, says its target is to ensure that it increases family planning to the point of government ownership.
Making this known to The Tide in an exclusive interview, Monday, the State Programme Coordinator, TCI, Mrs Uduak Ananaba, said the essence is to ensure that governments at all levels adhere to the need for family planning to be sustained in the society.
So far, she said, TCI has recorded several achievements towards attaining its target. They include causing a stir in family planning movement in Rivers State.
“Right now, everybody is talking about family planning, Even programmes that are not directly related to family planning are integrating family planning”, she said.
According to her, Rivers State is one of the eight states TCI had picked after “a strenuous process” involving the 36 states and Abuja.
Towards ensuring that this target is not only met, but also sustained, Mrs Ananaba said monitoring and evaluation mechanisms have been put in place from their offices in the chosen 8 LGAs up to the state level.
“In terms of monitoring, we have Desk officers in our offices, who are the first port of call to the facilities.
“They gather data and pass it on to the LGA Monitoring and Evaluation officers, for onward transmission to the state,” she said.
She explained that with the system in place, what TCI first looks out for is to identify if there is a gap, and where such gap exists, and then bridge the gaps.
While noting that different gaps exist in different LGAs, the state TCI boss said, “the plan is developed in consonance with the gap in given LGAs”.
TCI is an urban health programme designed to helping states, communities and institutions adopt innovative family planning models for improved maternal health in Nigeria.

Sogbeba Dokubo