16 May 2022

Government requires an additional P139 million to scale up contraceptive prevalence and meet family planning needs.

Finance minister, Ms Peggy Serame said in Kasane recently that the funds were necessitated by a Botswana Investment Case Towards Ending Unmet Need for Family Planning report recommendation.

The additional resources would assist government in the intensification of efforts towards ensuring that sexual and reproductive health as well as  rights services were an essential part of Universal Health Coverage, she said during the report’s launch. 

She challenged health sector stakeholders to reconsider ways of assessing priorities during budgeting cycles.

Ms Serame urged the Ministry of Health to reset the way it identified and prioritised projects as well as ensure spending efficiency since it continued to receive a substantial share of the national budget annually.

She said the report spelled out the immense benefits of family planning, which Botswana should strive to achieve. 

Apart from empowering individuals and couples to space pregnancies, family planning also saved lives and promoted health system effectiveness by improving maternal health and child survival as well as prevented sexual transmission of HIV.

In addition, she said, it advanced gender equality and economic prosperity through women and youth empowerment.

“Sadly, the situation on the ground is different as unintended pregnancies in Botswana continue. One key indicator of this being teenage pregnancies and between 2015 and 2019 girls aged 10-19 years accounted for about 10 per cent of all recorded births in Botswana. 

Furthermore, 43 per cent of the participants in a cohort study on sexually transmitted infections reported their current pregnancy to be unintended,” she said.

Quoting the 2022 State of the World Population report, also launched in Kasane, UNFPA East and Southern Africa regional director, Dr Bannet Ndyanabangi said close to half of all the world’s pregnancies, roughly 121 million each year, were unintended.

Dr Ndyanabangi said in the report titled, ‘Seeing the unseen: The case for action in the neglected crisis of unintended pregnancy’, nearly a quarter of the affected women and girls were unable to make decisions about their own health.

“In the Eastern and Southern region, which Botswana is part of, half of women lack power to make decisions on reproductive issues,” he said. 

He labelled unintended pregnancy a crisis because it was linked to lack of development and could lead to unsafe abortion.

He commended the health ministry for deliberating on  sexual and reproductive health and rights issues which culminated in commissioning of the Investment Case Towards Ending Unmet Need for Family Planning study early last year.

The ministry’s senior consultant-primary health care, Dr Malebogo Kebabonye said government subscribed to the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) plan of action which required states to ensure universal sexual reproductive health, including expansion of access to modern contraceptives. She said during  ICPD commemoration in Nairobi, Botswana committed to improving access to family planning, quality and affordable safe modern contraceptives.

Dr Kebabonye said the ministry would continue prioritising the  aspirations in order to expand the range of affordable safe modern contraceptives in a sustainable, non-disruptive, client-focused and dignified manner while ensuring that no one was left behind.

In other developing countries, unintended pregnancies were a major concern because they resulted in an array of health complications such as unsafe abortions or maternal mortality and psychosocial issues which affected women’s mental wellbeing, she said.

Dr Kebabonye said in 2021, Botswana recorded an estimated maternal mortality ratio of 166 per 100 000 with at least seven per cent due to unsafe abortions. 

She said priotising family planning and of women and girl’s needs was central to achievement of Sustainable Development Goals.

“While my ministry remains a technical guide to the implementation of family planning programme, the fight towards achieving empowerment, full quality and autonomy of women as essential to social and economic progress lies not on one entity but all of us,” she said. ends