Founder, Wellbeing Foundation Africa (WBFA) and wife of the Senate President, Mrs. Toyin Saraki has called for increased access to skilled midwives within communities.

 

She said such move could have a transformative impact and empower more vulnerable women, children, and adolescents.

 

She made the call at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) where she spoke on the Johnson & Johnson panel on the theme: “Walking Together for Women & Children: Unique Roles for Government,

 

Civil Society and Private Sector.”

 

 

According to a statement from the Foundation, Mrs. Saraki said: “Midwives, if given the right education, regulation, and midwifery associations within a global midwifery services framework-are crucial to achieving SDG3 and all targets related to this goal.”

 

Saraki who was discussing the potential of partnerships to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in light of the success of strategic public-private partnerships in support of Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (MNCH) during the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) era, stated that although there is work to be done on how to apply tri-sector collaborations to suit the SDG context, one of the most important things learnt during the MDG process was collaboration that different sectors and policy personalities, can actually work and be constructive.

 

According to her, when the organisation developed its Personal Health Records (PHRs), it made a consistent effort to reach out to partners to ensure that it could reach scale with a life-saving tool.

 

By Adie Vanessa Offiong

Daily Trust