Lagos:  Last week women aspirants from all the states of the federation gathered at the Ladi Kwali Conference Centre of the Sheraton Hotel, Abuja, from August 27-28 2010. They were there at the invitation of the Abuja-based AdvocacyNigeria for Reduction of Maternal Mortality and its partners, Women Rights Advancement and Protection Alternative (WRAPA) and the Nigeria Urban Reproductive Health Initiative (NURHI). They are all nongovernmental organisations working in reproductive health and in particular reduction of maternal mortality.

They collaborated to host a sensitisation workshop which was to provide the aspirants with the information they require to make maternal health a priority in the manifestoes of the political parties and also make it a campaign issue while they are out in field campaigning. The event was funded by the Office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on OSSAP/MDGs with the support of all the UN agencies in the country. The Head of UN Systems in Nigeria Ms Soumi Soukai presented a goodwill message on their behalf.

The workshop was the second of its kind. Earlier in the month, AdvocacyNigeria, as part of the activities listed in its work plan for an election year, had organised a sensitisation workshop for women aspirants from the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja, Niger and Nasarawa states at Rock View Hotel in Abuja. The workshop went so well and participants were eager to focus on making maternal mortality reduction an issue in their campaigns and also advocate for its inclusion in their political parties' manifestoes. To ensure that they take action, the aspirants developed an action plan for them to implement. One of the stakeholders of AdvocacyNigeria who attended the event was so impressed that in her remarks at the end of the workshop, Mrs. Amina Az Zubair, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on OSSAP/MDGs, decided to organise a bigger workshop for 250 women aspirants drawn from all the states to focus on MDG5. The three partner NGOs again set to work and planned the workshop for 250 participants and allocated limited numbers of delegates to each state.

Some of the states that were anxious to get all their women aspirants to participate sent text messages to all aspirants and invited them to attend. This led to the workshop being oversubscribed and over 200 women aspirants nationwide attended the event. We had difficulty with logistics but strategised, negotiated and got the additional aspirants to also participate with minimum additional expenditure. Having worked for several years to encourage women to participate effectively in politics and public life, we were happy with the turn out and did not want to lose any of the aspirants who turned up out of their zeal to empower themselves.

At the opening ceremony of the workshop, the OSSAP/MDG's Mrs Amina Az Zubair welcomed participants and said the MDGs provide a 'comprehensive agenda for development and improving the lives of Nigerians by empowering women, providing universal basic education, quality health care and reducing poverty". She expressed her commitment to continue to support all activities that would promote achievement of the MDGs in Nigeria.

The Minister for Women Affairs and Social Development Iyom Josephine Anenih (mni) while declaring the workshop open gave the aspirants a few tips on electoral politics and mobilisation of voters. She challenged the aspirants to use the information that would be disseminated at the workshop for initiating change. The technical sessions featured presentation of papers by resource persons. They include Overview of the MDGs by Hassan Okpanachi of UNDP, Global Overview of Maternal and Newborn Mortality by Dr Aham Isika, Maternal Mortality: Practical Realities from the Field by Dr. Mairo Mandara, Government Responses to the Challenges of Maternal Health NPHC Perspective by Dr. Mohammed Pate, the National Health Insurance Scheme NHIS Perspective by Dr. Muhammed Dogo.

Others were the Faith Based Perspectives to the Challenges of Maternal Health: the Islamic perspective was presented by Hajiya Madina Dauda while the Christian perspective was presented by Rev. Sister Ignatius Okafor. The last session for the day was titled Packaging the Message for Maternal Mortality Reduction for Inclusion in Party Manifestoes and it was presented by my humble self.

On the second day, the paper presentations continued with the paper titled Political Party Manifestoes: Analysis of Coverage of Women's Health and Gender Issues, brief presentation on reflections from 1999-2010 by Dr. Ejiro Otive-Igbuzor. Mr Bola Kusemiju then led the Action Planning process. This was followed with a session for Group Work and participants were divided into zonal groups to undertake an assignment of developing an agenda for women's health and maternal mortality reduction for the political parties. The questions they addressed were:

• List three key priority actions that your zone will undertake to make a change or a difference in your zonal constituency related to maternal and newborn health

• How will you get women's health and maternal mortality reduction issues into manifestoes of all the political parties in your zone?

After developing their action plans for promoting maternal health in their zones while also reflecting on their own individual implementation plans, the aspirants returned to the plenary to present their plans. To ensure harmony and ownership, an agenda for inclusion of maternal health in the manifestoes of the political parties was developed from all the zonal action plans.

The papers presented drew the attention of the participants to the deplorable health conditions of Nigerian women, and mobilised them to recognise the important role they must play in leading political actions on maternal health and ensuring its inclusion in the manifestoes of their parties. The workshop focused on women political aspirants and provided them with the information they require to make maternal health a priority. The summary of the message conveyed at the workshop is as follows:

• Maternal Health is a national priority issue for development;

• Nigeria has one of the highest maternal deaths in the world;

• Nigeria's investment in maternal health will accelerate the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (Goal 4, 5 & 6). These MDG goals are for reduction of infant mortality, maternal mortality and combating HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis.

The organisers expected that by at the end of the workshop, the women politicians will be able to understand the key issues in maternal health and where to take appropriate action, ensure inclusion of maternal health issues in their political manifestoes and advocate for comprehensive and adequately funded free maternal health services (MNCH), including family planning and cancer screening services at all levels.

The participants were also expected to advocate for enactment of a law making comprehensive maternal health services (MNCH) free in Nigeria and develop an action plan for making maternal health a campaign issue and ensure its inclusion in their political party manifestoes. The organisers believe that these will lead to the women politicians demanding increased investment in maternal health. The papers presented at this workshop were quite rich will be shared with readers in the next article. The vote of thanks was delivered by Hajiya Saudatu Mahdi, the Executive Secretary, WRAPA, while Hon. Salome Jankada, a former minister and senatorial aspirant, presented a vote of thanks on behalf of the participants.

*  By Hajiya Bilkisu