Abuja, 11 July, 2016 - Today in Abuja, the WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti says Nigeria’s vision of providing primary health care (PHC) and ensuring equity in accessing health services by all Nigerians aligns perfectly with the goals of the World Health Organization (WHO). 

Dr Moeti who was speaking during a meeting with the Honourable Minister of Health, Professor Isaac Adewole and other high-ranking officials and heads of agencies under the Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH) at the commencement of her 3-day official visit to Nigeria, stated that “I am encouraged by the prioritization of revitalizing PHC as an overarching strategy towards universal health coverage”. 

She reaffirmed WHO’s readiness to provide technical support and share experiences from other countries, especially in areas of service package, human resources for health, health management information systems, health financing and the International Health Partnership (IHP+) framework. She singled out the centrality of timely and credible health information that will facilitate immediate action and local decision-making at state level and below as well as facilitating better alignment of other stakeholders’ contributions.

On polio eradication legacy transition planning, Dr Moeti appreciated the gains achieved so far but re-stated that with the inevitability of dwindling partner resources for the initiative,  the country needs to strategize on how the personnel and infrastructure will be utilized to support other public health interventions. 

Earlier, the Minister of Health made a keynote presentation on the health sector vision of attaining universal health coverage (UHC) through PHC stating that “this was the government’s singular vision that is bold in scope end ambitious in scale” towards poverty reduction, job creation, economic growth, elimination of inequities in health access across the six (6) geo-political zones and, above all, accelerating attainment of UHC for all.

Professor Adewole pointed out that with current health sector budgetary allocation at just above 4%, attaining the government’s vision will definitely require additional federal and state budgetary provisions while efforts to deal with existing inefficiencies are on-going. He further informed Dr Moeti that an inter-ministerial task force, involving ministries of Finance, Budget and Planning had already been put in place and welcomed her planned advocacy meeting with the respective ministers during the visit.

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01 Dr Matshidiso Moeti speaking at FMOH

02 Dr Moeti flanked by Minister of Health (left), Minister of State for Health and other dignitaries at FMOH