Yasir Jamal Bakare (Lead Writer)
In what can only be described as a looming public health crisis, Nigeria is on the verge of a reversal in family planning (FP) outcomes.
As evidently proposed in the 2025 national health budget, the federal funding for FP programming has been slashed to ₦66.39 million, a 97% reduction from the ₦2.225 billion allocated in 2024. This seismic cut arrives at a time when the country is also grappling with the exit of a critical funder, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) from funding support for family programmes.
The impact of this dual shock is immediate and far-reaching, and will exacerbate existing challenges with stockouts of essential contraceptive commodities. It will also lead to an increase in unintended pregnancies, increased maternal mortality, and the undermining of Nigeria’s commitments to the FP2030 goals.
As we face 2025, the question is not whether there will be a fallout, but how severe it will be, and whether key stakeholders, including the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, development partners, and donors, can urgently respond.
The current funding reality is not just a technical or fiscal issue, it is a human rights crisis. Family planning is foundational to gender equity, maternal health, child welfare, and economic development. The impact of this funding collapse will disproportionately affect Nigeria’s most vulnerable: poor, young, and rural women and girls.
In addition, Nigeria’s ability to increase its modern Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (mCPR) is currently at 15% according to the NDHS 2023–24 and reduce the unmet need for contraceptives is now in jeopardy. The gains made as a result of the 2020 National FP Blueprint and task-shifting policies are at risk of being wiped out in a single budget cycle.
A breakdown of the budget collapse
In 2024, Nigeria demonstrated modest fiscal commitment to reproductive health by allocating ₦2.225 billion to family planning services, although representing just 0.14% of the total health budget. These funds were crucial not only for programmatic support, but also for contraceptive commodity procurement and counterpart funding necessary to leverage donor assistance.
However, the current allocation tells a starkly different story. The zero allocation for contraceptive commodities and the complete absence of counterpart funding mechanisms signals a dangerous deprioritisation of reproductive health in Nigeria. The share of the health budget for family planning has essentially been wiped out, dropping to 0%.
This budgetary abandonment is particularly alarming, given Nigeria’s population growth trajectory, the current total fertility rate (TFR) of 4.8 and the high unmet need for contraception among married women aged 15–49 and unmarried girls (with an increase to 20% in 2023–24) . With an annual population growth rate of over 2.5% and a mCPR still below 20%, the need for sustained funding for FP programmes has never been more urgent.
The donor withdrawal effect and its aftershocks
In 2021, the United Kingdom (UK) government withdrew its annual funding of about £3 million from Nigeria’s FP fund. Fast-forward to 2025, Official Development Assistance (ODA) from the United States that played a pivotal role in sustaining Nigeria’s supply chain for contraceptives has been withdrawn. The funding of approximately $1.02 billion in foreign assistance to Nigeria in 2023, was used to procure family planning commodities.
These contributions were vital in filling supply gaps for family planning commodities, particularly in underserved states in northern Nigeria, like Borno State where donor-funded interventions reached thousands of women. In Borno State alone, contraceptive use has plummeted from 13,000 to just 3,000 users within a single year, a sobering glimpse of what was yet to unfold nationwide.
Similarly, the government’s commitment to achieving a contraceptive prevalence rate of 27% by 2030 will be jeopardised by a drastic 97% cut in funding for FP initiatives.
According to national forecasts, the annual funding gap for contraceptive commodities currently stands at ₦6–₦8 billion. If not addresed, national stock levels are expected to be exhausted by late 2025, putting service delivery at risk in more than 15,000 primary healthcare (PHC) facilities.
In such situations, the United Nations Population Fund UNFPA’s vital support in Nigeria which has spanned more than two decades, has been crucial in providing stock ups of reproductive health kits, capacity building, and technical assistance. Yet, the recent withdrawal of funding from the U.S has dealt a devastating blow and further complicated the already precarious funding landscape for family planning in Nigeria.
The shortfall is not merely administrative, it is a life-threatening gap. It puts millions of women, particularly in rural and hard-to-reach areas, at risk of unintended pregnancies, unsafe abortions, and maternal death. Lagos State has started exploring avenue to fill the funding gap for family planning services, under its robust insurance programme Lagos State Health Scheme (LASHMA).
Strategic and scalable solutions
In this moment of crisis, the opportunity for transformation also exists. Nigeria must consider a range of immediate and medium-to-long-term strategies to stabilise the FP ecosystem:
- Private Sector Engagement: Nigeria should further explore opportunities to partner with the private sector, providing logistics and service delivery for commodities.
The Private Sector Health Alliance of Nigeria (PSHAN) is committed to improving family planning services by leveraging private sector resources and partnerships to strengthen Nigeria’s healthcare infrastructure. PSHAN is currently implementing a series of related projects designed to make a difference, including Adopt a Health Facility Project (ADHFP), which is contributing significantly to improving maternal and reproductive health nationwide, and Shaping Equitable market Access (SEMA) project which aims to increase the availability of Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) products by 40%.
- Expand State-Level Funding: As seen in Kano State’s exemplary FP strategy, subnational governments can play a leading role in financing and implementing FP programmes. State-level health insurance schemes should better integrate FP services.
Similarly, the State-Led Strategic Purchasing for Family Planning, Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (SP4FP-MNCH) project, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (2018–2024), supported the operationalisation and strengthening of Lagos State’s Health Insurance Scheme. The project focused on strategic purchasing, service integration (including FP, MNCH, HIV, and TB), private sector engagement, enrolment expansion, and research capacity building. This led to a major transformation of the scheme, including its rebranding to “Ilera Eko” and a rise in informal sector enrollment from under 1,000 to over 950,000–42,000 of which were directly linked to the project. Improved service access and benefit integration contributed to increased uptake of essential health services and progress toward reducing maternal and child mortality.
A call to act
Nigeria stands at a critical crossroads. The cut in FP funding in 2025 is more than a policy failure, it is a wake-up call. Without urgent reinvestment and strategic collaboration among government, donors, and the private sector, the country risks a greater health crisis with long-term socio-economic consequences.
Policymakers across all levels of the government, Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, and development partners need to rise to the challenge. The urgency is clear, the path forward is known, and the lives of millions of Nigerian women and girls depends on what actions are taken next.