By Yusuf Oketola
The Rotary International President, Olayinka Babalola, has disclosed that maternal deaths in healthcare facilities supported by the organisation’s intervention in Nigeria have dropped by 77 per cent, while newborn deaths declined by 45 per cent.
Babalola attributed the improvement to sustained collaboration between Rotary, government health authorities, community health workers, and international development partners under the organisation’s Together for Healthy Families in Nigeria programme.
According to a statement shared with Sunday PUNCH, Babalola disclosed this while delivering his keynote address at the All Nigeria Rotary Peace Summit in Lagos, where he highlighted the organisation’s contributions to healthcare delivery, community development, and peacebuilding.
Launched in 2022, the programme was designed to reduce maternal and newborn mortality through improved prenatal care, access to essential medicines, and the provision of medical equipment in healthcare facilities.
Babalola said Rotary members in the country, working with partners in Germany and federal and state ministries of health, had extended support to expectant mothers across three states and the Federal Capital Territory.
He disclosed that community health workers had conducted nearly 60,000 home visits to expectant mothers and their families, while 158 healthcare facilities had received contraceptives, medicines, and medical equipment.
“We have already seen positive outcomes. Maternal deaths were reduced by 77 per cent, and newborn deaths were reduced by 45 per cent at supported facilities,” he said.
The Rotary president said the intervention demonstrated how access to essential social services could contribute to national stability and peace by preventing avoidable deaths, strengthening public confidence, and reducing pressure on healthcare institutions.
“With each child born safely to a healthy mother, we ease the burden carried by the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare. We give families a greater sense of safety and security,” he added.
Babalola explained that Rotary’s concept of peace went beyond the absence of armed conflict to include access to healthcare, education, justice, economic opportunities, and other conditions necessary for human development.
He said the organisation’s interventions aligned with its Positive Peace philosophy, which focuses on addressing the underlying conditions that sustain peaceful and stable societies.
“To grow Positive Peace from the ground up, Rotary starts from the very foundation of life, as we have done here,” he said.
The Rotary chief also highlighted Nigeria’s achievement in eliminating indigenous wild poliovirus transmission, noting that the country had remained free of the deadly virus since 2020.
He said Rotary continued to collaborate with the World Health Organisation and other partners to sustain the achievement and respond to outbreaks of variant poliovirus.
The Rotary president urged government institutions, development partners, community leaders, and citizens to strengthen collaboration in addressing challenges confronting Nigerians.
In her presentation, the Director of Partnerships at the Institute for Economics and Peace, Lea Prekerests, identified two dimensions of peace, stressing that peace meant more than the absence of violence.
She explained that Negative Peace referred to the absence of violence or the fear of violence, while Positive Peace represented the attitudes, institutions, and structures that created and sustained peaceful societies.
Prekerests said Positive Peace was particularly important because it provided the foundation for lasting peace.
Also speaking, the Inspector-General of Police, Olatunji Disu, called for stronger collaboration between the Nigeria Police Force and Rotary International to improve community relations, institutional partnerships, and public confidence.
Disu, who was represented by Assistant Inspector-General of Police Miller Dantawaye, said cooperation between both organisations could help connect institutions with communities, government with citizens, and security with service.
He urged stakeholders to work toward building communities where justice was accessible, institutions were trusted, and citizens could live with dignity, security, and hope.
The IGP also proposed a formal Police-Rotary fellowship to institutionalise the partnership.
“Let me therefore take the first bold step of appealing to the RI President that we jointly fix a date for the first official Police/Rotary fellowship that will be jointly presided over by the IGP and RI President to kick-start the collaboration,” he said.
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