The Sierra Leone Business Forum in collaboration with the United Nations Fund for Population has organized a one-day workshop on improving maternal health through family planning at the conference Hall of the Christian Health Association of Sierra Leone (CHASL), 4B Kingherman Road Freetown.
Delivering the welcome address, the Deputy Director of Sierra Leone Business Forum Limited, Franklyn Williams, said Sierra Leone still faces major health challenges which needs to be urgently tackled, to get closer to the millennium Development Goals by 2015.
He said the objective of the workshop is to further inform and sensitize the business sector about the benefits of family planning of their corporate social responsibility, as well as the benefits they can earn from their active participation that aims at reducing maternal and child mortality, especially family planning programmes.
He said the Sierra Leone Business Forum Limited, advocates for family planning in Sierra Leone, so that children are born by choice rather than chance and that the private sector gets access to family planning information.
He said Sierra Leone Business Forum Limited, serves as the interface between the public and the private sector to discuss investment climate reform issues and private sector development in general with a view to creating the enabling environment for the private sector to thrive.
Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Mabinty Daramy, who chaired the ceremony said improving maternal health through family planning is a component that needs to be addressed by the private sector through partnership and sponsorship.
She commended the Sierra Leone Business Forum Limited for taking the initiative to organize the workshop and promised to support the business sector to ensure that poverty reduction is enhanced in the entire country, through employment creation for a healthy and vibrant population.
The Assistant Representative and head of programmes of the UNFPA, Mariama Diarra, said as partners “we think the business sector plays a crucial role in promoting maternal health in the country.”
She gave an overview of their activities in the country in promoting health-related issues across the country, as having babies should be a matter of choice and that UNFPA does not subscribe to abortion.
In a power-point presentation, UNFPA Programmes Coordinator, Philippe Lust Bianchi, highlighted the successes and challenges of low-family planning and its causes of maternal mortality deaths in all hospitals is due to hemorrhage and prolonged labour.
Florence Bull of the Reproductive Health and Family Planning Unit of the Ministry of Health and Sanitation said that 358,000 women die from causes related to pregnancy and child birth and spoke about the need to strengthen family planning to achieve the millennium development goals. She said the private sector can solve deeply embedded health problems on its own support programs.
The workshop ended with interactive questions and answers session on the role of the private sector on improving maternity health through family planning.
By Saidu Bah
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