World Bank approves US$500m for Nigeria to improve maternal, child health

The World Bank Group announced at the weekend that its executive directors have approved the US$500 million
International Development Association (IDA) credit for Nigeria to significantly improve maternal, child, and nutrition health services for women and children.

 

Nigeria accounts for 14 percent of all annual maternal deaths worldwide, second only to India at 17 percent and also accounts for 13 percent of all global deaths of children under the age of five years, again second only to India at 21 percent.

By improving access to higher quality health services, the new development financing will help Nigeria to achieve its ‘Saving One Million Lives (SOML) Initiative,’ which was launched by the Federal Ministry of Health in October 2012 to save the lives of the more than 900,000 women and children who die every year in Nigeria from largely preventable causes.

“Saving One Million Lives is a bold response from the Nigerian government to improve the health of the country’s mothers and children so they can survive illness and thrive,” Benjamin Loevinsohn, a lead health specialist and task team leader for the new project, said in a statement posted by the World Bank.

“This, in turn, will also contribute to the social and economic development of Africa’s largest economy.”

The IDA loans of the World Bank are offered to the world’s poorest countries and come in the form of “credits”, which are essentially interest-free.

They offer a 10-year grace period and hold a maturity of 35 years to 40 years.

To address the challenge of its 900,000 maternal and child deaths, Nigeria’s SOML Initiative focuses on increasing the use of high impact reproductive and child health and nutrition interventions and improving  the quality of these services.

It also focuses on strengthening, monitoring and evaluation systems and measurement data; encouraging private sector innovation; as well as increasing transparency in management and budgeting for Primary Health Care (PHC) in the country.

The World Bank’s support for SOML will utilise the Programme-for-Results (PforR) instrument to encourage a greater focus on results, increase accountability, improve measurements, strengthen management,and foster  innovation.

The bank said the Programme-for-Results funds will only be disbursed to the federal and state governments for independently verified improvements in key services such as vaccination coverage among young children, rates of contraceptive use, Vitamin A supplementation, skilled birth attendance, HIV counselling and testing among women
attending antenatal care, and preventing new malaria infections among children  by using insecticide-treated bed nets when they sleep.

Federal and state governments will also receive incentive payments for better tackling of governance and management issues in the health sector and for improving the quality of basic health services.

“This welcome new Programme-for-Results operation for health will also strengthen Nigeria’s own health system and development footing while also providing an important mechanism for bringing both government and development partners together around a commitment to achieve specific, tangible results,” said Marie Francoise

Marie-Nelly, Nigeria country director.

The programme will be implemented under the Federal Ministry of Health in close cooperation with the Federal Ministry of Finance which will provide the financial oversight role, the bank said.