NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Monday, May 4, 2015

The Board of Executive Directors of the World Bank Group, last month, approved a $500 million International Development Association (IDA) credit for Nigeria.

The IDA is the window of the World Bank which offers grants and low- to zero-interest rate loans for projects and programmes that boost economic growth, reduce poverty, and improve standard of living.

The facility granted Nigeria was designed to bring about significant improvements in maternal, child, and nutrition health services for women and children in the country.

Domestic reforms aimed at improving cogent primary healthcare indicators in the country and engagements with multilateral funding agencies and donors fructified the credit. In 2012, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg of Norway and Chelsea Clinton, in her capacity as Board Member of Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), arrived in Nigeria to join President Goodluck Jonathan and (then) Honourable Minister of State for Health, Dr. Muhammad Ali Pate, to launch the Saving One Million Lives (SOML) initiative with support from CHAI.

The rationale for the initiative was that in Nigeria, an estimated one million mothers and children die each year from preventable causes. As a result, the Federal Ministry of Health decided to set new goals to improve quality healthcare from 2013 and save the lives of Nigerian mothers and children. Health sector experts and stakeholders credit Dr. Pate as the initiator of the SOML initiative.

He had come into Nigeria’s healthcare limelight following his trailblazing work at the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), where he served as the Executive Director from 2008 to 2011.