The World Health Organization (WHO) has commended the United Kingdom’s Department of Health and Social Care for a fresh funding commitment to help Nigeria develop its health workforce in a bid to achieve Universal Health Coverage.
According to WHO, the £2 million award will be used to assist the government of Nigeria in optimizing the performance, quality, and impact of the health workforce through evidence-informed policies and strategies over a two-year period.
The United Kingdom granted a multimillion-pound boost to promote healthcare personnel recruitment and retention in three African nations – Kenya, Nigeria, and Ghana – in order to support resilience in the face of global health concerns.
The Nigerian health system, like many in the global south, has had difficulty in maintaining a resilient health system that is able to provide quality health services, promote health and prevent diseases. The challenges have been further exacerbated by the recent COVID-19 pandemic which directly impacts the availability of health workers to provide quality services across the country.
The British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Dr Richard Montgomery said, “A skilled, well-motivated, and adequate health workforce is critical for Nigeria to #EndPreventableDeaths and build resilience against global threats.
This UK International Development funding aligns with the Nigerian health workforce strategic plan and will help the country upskill its workers, and improve health outcomes in the long run.”
The 2-year HRH project aims to support the government at national and sub-national levels and support regulatory bodies, professional associations, and other key stakeholders to develop transformative strategies for scaling up the quantity and quality of health workers, including competency-based curricula development and reviews.
It will help to align investment in HRH with the current and future needs of the population and health systems; strengthen the capacity of institutions including regulatory bodies for effective public policy stewardship, leadership, and governance, optimize health workers’ retention, equitable distribution, and performance and strengthen the management of Health workforce data for monitoring and accountability. The project will implement interventions in Nigeria.
The project will draw on the technical capacity of WHO to strengthen health systems including experience of implementing similar projects with appreciable results in the past.
Implementation at sub-national levels with a focus on 6 states of Cross River, Enugu, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, and Lagos, will build on the presence and technical support being provided to State governments through the 37 WHO sub-national offices in Nigeria.
“The strength of every health system reflects the capacity and adequacy of its health workforce, which are necessary to deliver quality services to address population health needs,” says Dr Walter Kazadi Mulombo, WHO Representative in Nigeria.
For a resilient and effective health system, Nigeria must have adequate numbers of health workers who are fit for purpose, motivated to perform, and equitably distributed across the subnational levels to enhance equity in access to their services by the population in need.
“Through the UK government’s generous support through WHO, we will deploy the technical support from the 3 levels of the organization to support the development of evidence-based policies and strategies, capacity building and management for improved planning and management of Nigeria’s health workforce”.
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