Nigeria’s Maternity Survival Has Increased By 35percent, Says H.E. Toyin Saraki

Founder-President of the Wellbeing Foundation Africa, Toyin Saraki has revealed that maternity survival in Nigeria has increased to 35 percent between 2010 and 2015, due to the introduction of the Midwives Service Scheme.

Saraki who made this disclosure at the World Economic Forum 50th Annual Meeting 2020, Davos in Switzerland, added that the introduction also saw 4400 more midwives deployed within the public health system.

She said, Water, sanitation and hygiene results are falling dangerously behind and nowhere is inequality more stark than in the health conditions of women, children, and adolescents.

The Founder however, called on stakeholders globally to accelerate progress for a cohesive and sustainable future, adding: “Around the world, people are revolting against the economic elites, which they have believe have betrayed them.”

Saraki promised to mobilise support and resources for midwifery competencies, to demonstrate safer birth solutions for healthy futures for all within the Davos Manifesto 2020.

She went on: “In sanitation and hygiene in Nigeria and globally continue to represent a major challenge. I welcome recent achievements and milestones, in particular WHO resolutions and country commitments, but WASH is one area where ‘business as usual’ is simply not good enough”
“Since April 2018 when the Wellbeing Foundation Africa introduced new WASH in schools and hygiene in health care facilities and households programs, while advocating to reduce open defecation, we have measured considerable impact which gives us the courage to now insist on a rapid acceleration of our best-practice models engaging midwives as sanitation angels, to national scale”

“As I reflect on the past few years of World Economic Forum meetings, my thinking has evolved: and it has become more widely accepted that the donor-recipient model of development is no longer fit for purpose. Primary health is the essential building block to ignite midwifery competencies which will fuel specialist expertise, relying on competencies on both sides and whole-system support”

“This decade must bring us all to a more equal table. The era of ‘north-south’ is gone and must be replaced by a more balanced development dialogue based on mutual respect and understanding”

“That dialogue will bring about a learning exchange and help to celebrate, demonstrate, mobilise and unite the global health workforce, as outlined by the International Confederation of Midwives, for whom I am proud to serve as the Global Goodwill Ambassador”

“In 2020, designated by the World Health Organization as the year of the Nurse and Midwife, we can kick-start the decade of action and place midwives at the core of that new dialogue and delivery. I look forward to continued work with my fellow stakeholders this week in Davos.”

She urged the private sector to rise to the challenge and work to urgently deliver the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).