The future of Africa is tied to the future of women

I am Mildred Nadah-Pita and privileged to serve as Head of Healthcare Programs and Sustainability for Bayer Pharma in Sub-Saharan Africa.?

How to provide sustainable and affordable healthcare for Africa's bulging population in the midst of a global pandemic is a challenge that has preoccupied most governments and development partners. It is during testing times like these for healthcare funding and delivery that key gains made in family planning and other diseases are at risk of being lost.

?While doing this impact work in realizing Bayer's 100 million women goal, the now obvious link between healthcare and livelihoods comes to the forefront – teenagers unprepared for the realities of unwanted pregnancy, its reverberating impact on education completion rates, and near-term and future family incomes across a geography of misery in many slums across Africa. This is the reason why the Africa team that I lead takes our assignment with missionary zeal.

The faces of young families under economic stress in the slums and rural areas, like the one my mom was raised in, Tagombali in the Adamawa region of Northern Nigeria, will not allow me to take on this impact work with any less commitment.

?My mother was raised in a rural smallholder farming community. She was the first woman from her village to go to school. Many young adolescents like her gathered in regional schools mainly manned by missionaries at that time. Teenage pregnancy was a reason to drop out of school, sadly this is the reality even today. Some of her female classmates had to drop out of school for this reason. Access to contraception made the difference in my mother's pursuit for education and allowed her to stay the course. Now in her seventies, she is still a believer that women must and should be given the opportunity to make informed decisions about their lives and the size of the family they intend to have. Modern-day contraceptives pave the way for this. I always imagine what my life would have looked like without access to contraception – probably very far from what it is now. That is why I work hard to make sure that young women are educated enough to know what the risks of unwanted pregnancies are and how to take charge of their health and hence their future.

On our travels in the countries, we meet very young mothers, many aged 25 or younger, that by now have seven children and have never heard anything about family planning. These women's stories are not exclusive. We see these realities all over our region. There still is a gap – millions of women don't have access to modern-day contraceptives. Hence why Bayer's commitment to help provide 100 million women in LMICs with access to modern contraceptives by 2030 couldn't have come at a better time.

?Through the strength of partnerships, we have reached countless communities with behavioral change communication packages and partnered with supranational institutions and governments to deliver affordable contraceptives to millions of women and teenagers – keeping them in education, employment, and training where available.

The future of Africa is tied to the future of women, the hands rocking the cradle and shaping the destiny of nations – one child at a time.

We also work with youth organizations and NGOs to ensure that young people are part of the conversations that affect their health and wellbeing, using the annual World Contraception Day on September 26 to amplify these messages through digital platforms and channels.

Bayer is excited to continue to play a leading role as a dependable partner for communities and governments across Africa by providing, among many interventions, the social umbrella that contraceptives offer to help build healthy and economically resilient families that are the cornerstone of emerging markets.

And I am honored every single day to be part of THIS!!!