Program to Build Leadership and Accountability in Nigeria's Health System: Our Impact

Nse Usoro Odo is a 56-year-old farmer who lives with his wife, a small-scale trader, and their children in Ikot Udo Idem community in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. He is also the village town crier and a member of the Village Development Committee (VDC). Members of the VDC are responsible for conveying knowledge and information to community members. Combined earnings for Odo and his wife are around 700 naira or N700 (less than $3.50 USD) per day.

There is no way we can achieve the presidential mandate of 30 percent health coverage by 2015 without tapping into Nigeria’s informal sector. Community-Based Health Insurance (CBHI) is therefore a veritable tool to ensure wider coverage, increased ownership, and an entrenched culture of health insurance among the Nigerian public. 

Management Sciences for Health’s Nigeria Program to build Leadership and Accountability in Nigeria's Health System (PLAN-Health) supported the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Health and Human Services Secretariat of the Health Planning, Research and Statistics department to develop an eHealth policy. The eHealth policy is a set of principles and actions to guide implementation of healthcare practices supported by electronic processes and communication, including the use of health applications on mobile phones.

Waru is an underserved and hard-to-reach indigenous community in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) of Nigeria. Until recently, this community did not have a safe waste disposal system and the majority of homes did not have toilets. Residents often dumped their garbage in open fields and defecated in bushes. This haphazard disposal of human waste and garbage caused Waru’s water sources and environment to become contaminated and, in turn, many residents suffered from diarrhea, cholera, intestinal worms, malaria, and typhoid.