The Gates Foundation says there is a need to rethink the role of Official Development Assistance (ODA) in health financing in Nigeria, calling for greater focus on maximising domestic resources.
Country Director of the Foundation, Uche Amaonwu, made the call while moderating a panel at the Agenda-2025 National Health Financing Dialogue with the theme: ‘Reimagining the Future of Health Financing in Nigeria’ organised by the Federal Ministry 9f Health and Social Welfare in Abuja.
Amaonwu stressed the need to scale up innovation of ODA, otherwise known as foreign aid, to better support national priorities and close the financing gap, decrying the serious impact of funding reductions on programmes in recent years
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He said earlier preparation could have helped mitigate the shocks.
“It’s unfortunate that we had to get to that shock, but we are here,” he added.
The country director noted that ODA should act as a catalyst to unlock larger streams of government and domestic financing.
Some charts presented during the session showed that ODA represents only a small fraction of total expenditure, reinforcing arguments that sustainable development depends on mobilizing local resources.
He cited examples which included Nigeria’s growing coalitions to optimize domestic financing, increased allocations at the state level, and steps toward greater local government autonomy.
“These are all things that I hope, we have heard the stories about the 200 million allocations. We have heard about the increase in allocations at state and local government level,” Amaonwu remarked.
“We have to advise and help the government to make better decisions on how to use the money.”
He also highlighted mechanisms, such as partnerships aligned with the Nigerian government’s priorities, as opportunities to drive meaningful change, expressing his optimism that current reforms could position Nigeria to make more efficient and sustainable use of its resources.
Foreign development partners also pushed for a new approach to support Nigeria’s transformation agenda.
Ms. Maria Kirova, the Africa Head of the Global Fund reiterated the importance of innovative financing instruments, expansion of health insurance coverage, and reforms to strengthen financial systems.
Kirova noted that the strategy is aimed to unlock additional resources and boost domestic capacity in line with Nigeria’s priorities.
She said, “So just remember three things here in which we as development partners can partner with Nigeria on its transformation agenda in three specific ways. Innovative finance instruments, expanding health insurance coverage and driving innovation and efficiency and transforming the financial systems.
“These are a few financial instruments that can be deployed to actually unlock the potential to mobilize additional resources to apply to the digital era.”
Kirova noted that the instruments highlighted use blended finance mechanisms, such as partnerships that deploy land resources to improve concessionality and subsidize repayment terms.
“The global fund has partnered with countries whereby land resources have been deployed to increase the concessionality of those from the non-electric development in the past by using the interest rate or by subsidizing the payments.
“This has allowed us access to much larger volumes and more affordable financing to address the domestic health priorities.
Leila Ben Amor, the head of cooperation, European Union delegation to Nigeria and ECOWAS reiterated that financing is shifting towards more partnership and investment,” she added.