A Non Governmental Organisation, Balanced Stewardship Development Association (BALSDA) has called on the Nigerian government to include sexual and reproductive health in climate change discuss.
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The Executive Director, Balanced Stewardship Development Association (BALSDA), Mr Adeleye Adewale, made the appeal at the dissemination of a policy brief on Climate Change and Sexual Reproductive Health Rights SRHR-Exploring the Linkages Seminar, in Abuja.
He said that Nigeria, like other African countries, developed her beautiful National Adaptation Plan Framework for climate change mitigation but there was no mention of women SRHR in it.
“Climate change, its impacts, and subsequent efforts to address them, negatively affect Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) both directly and indirectly. These negative impacts are felt most by girls and women, and individuals who already experience multiple barriers to the realization of their SRHR. In particular, adolescents; people living with disabilities etc. face significant barriers in accessing SRHR information and services, including in humanitarian settings” Mr Adewale said.
He also said that reviewing the government’s climate change policy document showed generally that the linkages between climate change and SRHR is not addressed therein.
“As climate change and SRHR issues are interrelated, impacting women’s health and livelihoods, it is important to have policy coordination and integrated response to these realities from the government’s side.
“Addressing this gap, BALSDA and her partners developed a policy brief that clearly identified the link between climate change and SRHR.
This policy brief will be disseminated to stakeholders and policy makers with the hope for an increased attention to gender issues in our adaptation action, this will bring an opportunity to ensure that our National Adaptation Plan processes take SRHR issues into consideration, both to avoid missed opportunities for synergies and to ensure that adaptation actions do not negatively affect SRHR“. He said.
Mr Adewale also described the ongoing COP 26 taking place in Glasgow, as a welcome development, saying that decisions reached there will benefit low income countries.
He noted that there is urgent need to review the National Adaptation Plan on Nigeria to capture issues surrounding sexual reproductive health.
On his part, the Deputy Director Federal Ministry of Environment, Dr. Aliyu Yauri, said that adaptation strategy policy is an open document that is open to inputs and recommendations by stakeholders.
He said that the ministry would inculcate and reflect the changes to highlight sexual reproductive health in the policy.
He also said that the ministry will continue to fill the gaps in the existing policy to the satisfaction of every stakeholder.
He added that the department of Climate Change will continue to collaborate with Balanced Stewardship Development Association (BALSDA) to meet expectations.
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