Abstract
BackgroundNon-governmental organisations (NGOs) are expected to be in the vanguard, repositioning reproductive health as a central issue in population and development in Nigeria. However, most of them have insufficient knowledge or access to policy and planning processes necessary at engaging effectively with the government. This article highlights the processes and outcome of an intervention aimed at strengthening the capacity of 12 non-governmental organisations on advocacy and policy related activities with emphasis on reproductive health issues.MethodsThe study employed a one group, pre and post test study design. Thirty six (36) staff from 12 NGOs was purposively selected and interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire at baseline to assess their knowledge and level of involvement in reproductive health, advocacy and policy issues. In-depth interviews were conducted with 6 officials of the ministries of health and women affairs to document previous reproductive health and policy related collaborative efforts with the NGOs. Baseline findings were used in developing and implementing a capacity building intervention. A post intervention evaluation was conducted to assess the outcomes.ResultsAll respondents (100 %) had tertiary level education and were from a multidisciplinary background such as nursing (41.7 %) medicine (25 %) and administration (13.9 %). The mean knowledge score on advocacy and policy issues at pre-test and post test was 39.1 ± 17.6 and 76.2 ± 14.2 respectively (p = 0.00). Participants reported making use of advocacy methods and the three most utilized were Phone calls (28.1 %), Face to Face meetings (26 %) and networking with other organisations for stronger impact (17.1 %).The outcome of their advocacy efforts include the provision of free air time by a television station to educate the populace on maternal health issues, donation of landed property to build a youth friendly centre, donation of a blog site for disseminating information on Reproductive health issues and training of other staff of their organisations on advocacy activities. The major challenges experienced by staff of the NGOs were financial (89 %) and time constraints (11 %).ConclusionEmpowered non-governmental organisations can effectively advocate for the implementation of reproductive health policies and programmes.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12913-015-0975-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are expected to be in the vanguard, repositioning reproductive health as a central issue in population and development in Nigeria
Organisational assessment on reproductive health advocacy and policy issues The findings of the organisational assessment revealed that none of the NGOs had implemented projects focusing solely on Reproductive Health (RH) advocacy and policy related issues
Our findings indicate that building the capacity of NGO staff in Reproductive health advocacy can lead to a change in the Reproductive health policy and programme service delivery environment
Summary
Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are expected to be in the vanguard, repositioning reproductive health as a central issue in population and development in Nigeria. The sexual and reproductive health needs of young persons are often unattended to and they have poor access to sexual reproductive health information and services These result in risky sexual behaviours, teenage pregnancies, unsafe abortions, drug abuse and contraction of STIs including HIV/AIDS [5,6,7] According to the National Adolescent Reproductive Health Survey 2012, 20 % of male and 37 % of female adolescents within the age group of 15–19 years were already sexually active [7]. Following the country’s return to democratic rule, efforts have been deployed by the government to respect, protect and fulfil the reproductive rights of her citizens Among such measures were the formulation of the National Reproductive Health Policy (2001) [11], National Family Life HIV&AIDS Education Program (2004) [12], National Gender Policy (2006) [13] and the Adolescent Health & Development Policy (2007)[14]. Advocacy is important in catalysing public opinion and support [18] and in turn this public support becomes central in the effective implementation of policies and programmes [19, 20]
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