The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in collaboration with the
Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic affairs organised a two-day
consultative forum with the title: Harnessing Demographic Dividend (DD)
for Sustainable Development of Nigeria: The Role of Muslim Religious
Leaders; and the theme: Increasing Access to Reproductive Health
Services as a Key Pillar for Achieving Demographic Dividend (DD) in
Nigeria. The venue was Transcorp Hilton, Abuja from Wednesday, 12 to 13
September 2018. At the end of the forum the following Call To Action
was made:
Background Information
The United Nations
Population Fund (UNFPA), in collaboration with Nigerian Supreme Council
for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) and The Sultan Foundation for Peace and
Development, Federation of Muslim Women’s Associations in Nigeria and
The Muslim Students Society of Nigeria organised a two-day national
consultation meeting on harnessing the demographic dividends which was
attended by over 250 participants drawn from across the length and
breadth of the country comprising Muslim Religious Leaders (MRLs),
Traditional rulers, representatives of faith-based organisations, UNFPA
West and Central Africa Regional Office Regional Director, as well as
high level representatives of the government, diplomatic community,
participants from other African countries and non-governmental
organisations.
The purpose of the consultation meeting was to
strengthen partnerships; provide avenues for sharing experiences and
best practices, but also to agree on a Call to Action that identifies
concrete decisions to be translated into a Plan of Action for
implementation and follow up by the Muslim religious leaders in order to
enhance the wellbeing of women, girls and young people. The objectives
of the consultation meeting were to: increase awareness and the
knowledge of Muslim Religious Leaders (MRLs) on the need to increase
access to Reproductive Health Services as a key Pillar for harnessing
Demographic Dividends in Nigeria, create the desired support to increase
access to Reproductive Health Services and the ability to make changes
in their various communities, build capacity of MRLs on the demographic
dividends; and to work with the MRLs to reinforce key messages and how
to implement strategies for harnessing the demographic dividends.
The key pillars to harnessing demographic dividends in Nigeria were the
basis for consultation sessions. Discussions were held on youth
empowerment, employment and restiveness; functional and vocational
education focusing on “Tsangaya” school and the “Almajiri” systems;
Egypt, TChad and the Gambia country experiences, the role of Muslim
Religious Leaders in achieving UNFPA’s transformative results; enabling
environment for attainment of SDGs 3 (good health and wellbeing) and 5
(gender equality); and Gender Equity, child spacing and fertility.
Engagements were forged at the opening ceremony and take home sessions,
which prepared the grounds for the call to action.
Call to Action
1. We, the Muslim Religious Leaders (MRLs) in Nigeria, having met in
Abuja, Nigeria, in a two-day national consultation meeting from 12th to
13th September, 2018 to engage with each other and agree on how we can
contribute to accelerating the process of harnessing the demographic
dividends in Nigeria, by increasing access to reproductive health
services to secure a better future for the women, girls and youths of
our dear country and build an innovative partnership to ensure their
empowerment through increased access to Reproductive Health Services as
a key pillar for achieving the Demographic Dividends;
2. Bearing
in mind that our contribution to youth employment, investments,
resource development, productivity and savings to harness the
Demographic Dividends is at the heart of our God-given responsibilities
as leaders; and that the empowerment of young people, including girls,
particularly benefits all. Consequently, we call on all religious
leaders to support the country’s roadmap for harnessing the potential of
young people through education, skills development, training, conflict
resolution, peace, love and the desire to serve humanity;
3.
Cognisant of the important role and influence that we as Muslim
religious leaders have in building moral and ethical values, shaping
opinions through our messages, driving consensus and affecting decisions
of the country, states, local governments, communities and individuals
alike, particularly of women and young people and the overwhelming
confirmation as further demonstrated by the examples shared from various
states and local governments of the country, through our deliberations
with policymakers, other religious and traditional leaders, experts and
other stakeholders of our on-going role in increasing access to
education and reproductive health services including strategies to
reduce maternal mortality;
4. Concerned with the erosion of
family values, the low inclusion of young people in development, the
weak linkage between economic empowerment and employment, and the high
rate of conflicts and internally displaced persons and their
vulnerability across the country and its neighbourhoods and the impact
of insurgency and natural disasters on maternal and neo-natal health
services;
5. Also concerned about the low level of access to
quality health services including reproductive health services and the
attendant high level of maternal mortality, unmet need for child spacing
services and information and the high rate of gender-based violence
including harmful practices, exposure to illicit sex and their impact on
the moral and socio-economic development of the country.
6. We
acknowledge that health is a blessing from God and some of our common
responsibilities are to encourage the removal of socio-cultural barriers
to health services especially reproductive health services;
7.
We welcome, encourage and celebrate initiatives by Muslim Religious
Leaders and Muslim Faith-Based Organisations within our country as they
contribute significantly to the provision of health services including
reproductive health services and information through advocacy for
policies and laws on health services, building health facilities,
training health professionals and contributing to the health and
empowerment of women and adolescent girls; and we praise them for their
commitments and efforts to educate and empower youth as a major
contribution towards harnessing the demographic dividends and achieving
the Sustainable Development Goals at the global level, and development
plan at the national and state levels;
8. We further condemn the
manipulation of religious text, wrong indoctrination of youth and abuse
of women and children that manifests through terrorist acts and call on
all, especially Muslim Religious Leaders, to work in partnership in
addressing the issue of countering violent extremism, radicalisation and
terrorism in the country and to combat hatred and hate speeches,
prejudice, intolerance and stereotyping on the basis of religion and
culture and protect young people from the factors that make them
vulnerable to these acts including drug abuse and trafficking;
9. We commit to acting as opinion leaders and role models in the
provision and acceptability of reproductive health services to
accelerate the achievement of zero Maternal, Child and Adolescent
mortality rates and to play an active role in community leadership and
engagement towards development;
10. We affirm the need to promote
Inter and Intra-religious dialogue at the local, state, national and
regional levels, harmony and cooperation in Africa to contribute to
peace and meaningful socio-economic development;
11. We call on
the country’s neighbouring states; UNFPA, the UN system and other
partners such as the African Union, the Wife of the President and the
Wives of Governors, the Islamic Development Bank, the African
Development Bank (AfDB) and the private sector to scale-up and
strengthen their relationship with Muslim Faith-Based organisations on
expanding access to reproductive health services by mobilising
investments for youth in order to harness the demographic dividends;
12. We request the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs and
other Faith Based Organisations in collaboration with UNFPA to mobilise
additional resources to support advocacy efforts of Muslim Faith-Based
Leaders and organisations in the implementation of their action plan;
13. We respectfully invite His Excellency, the President of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria to bring the outcomes of our consultation to the
attention of regional and global organisations such as ECOWAS, African
Union and to the United Nations General Assembly and in addition propose
to the Security Council the theme of youth and demographic dividends
for stability, peace, security and development;
14. We commit to
implement the ideas shared during the consultation meeting through an
action plan 2019-2022 to be developed aimed at social and behaviour
change to increase access to health services including reproductive
health in order to contribute to achievement of zero maternal mortality,
zero unmet need for child spacing, and zero gender-based violence
consistent with UNFPA’s Strategic Plan 2017-2021;
15. We pledge
to act to accelerate harnessing the demographic dividends for
sustainable development in our various communities, local governments
and states;
16. Harnessing the demographic dividends requires the
establishment of partnerships with a broad spectrum of stakeholders
including Muslim Religious Leaders who will complement the efforts of
government, and maximise inter-sectoral linkages. As a leading driver of
community and religious values, we believe that religious leaders are
best placed to drive and support the government of Nigeria and
development partners to harness the demographic dividends.
17. We call on government at all levels to:
i) Provide the enabling environment through policies, laws and
budgetary requirements for harnessing demographic dividends especially
through access to quality health services including reproductive health
and to mobilise young people and strengthen women’s participation in
national and sub-national development;
ii) To strengthen “Tsangaya” systems and practices to contribute to functional education and vocational skills for national development while ensuring the empowerment of both boys and girls and;
iii) Partner with religious leaders for harnessing demographic dividends at all levels especially at community level.
18. Finally, we also call on government and development partners to
employ innovative ways of continuous engagement of religious leaders
through capacity building, consultations and support for religious
leaders’ led community interventions for harnessing the demographic
dividends.
Friday September 14th, 2018
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