World Bank Gives Nigeria N99.5b To Improve Maternal Health
The World Bank released N99.5 billion for the Nigerian government to improve on maternal and child health and nutrition, PremiumTimes informs.
The World Bank announced that the fund was approved by the World Bank Group’s Board of Executive Directors through the International Development Association. According to the
expectations ,the fund will significantly improve maternal, child, and nutrition health services for women and children in Nigeria.
Through this funding, an improvement in the access of higher quality health service in order to achieve Nigeria’s “Saving One Million Lives, SOML, Initiative,” a project is paramount.
The initiative was launched in October 2012 to save the lives of the more than 900,000 women and children who die every year in Nigeria from largely preventable causes.
It should be noted that Nigeria accounts for 14 per cent of all annual maternal deaths worldwide, second only to India at 17 per cent. Similarly, Nigeria accounts for 13 per cent of all global deaths of children under the age of five years, again second only to India at 21 per cent.
The World Bank’s funding support for the initiative will utilize the Program-for-Results, PforR, instrument to encourage a greater focus on results, increase accountability, improve measurements, strengthen management, and foster innovation.
Marie Francoise Marie-Nelly, Nigeria’s Country Director said that this program will help strengthen Nigeria’s health system and development.
Marie-Nelly added the program will also provide an important tool for bringing both government and development partners together around a commitment to achieve specific, tangible results.
These funds will only be disbursed to the Federal and State governments for independently verified improvements in key services such as vaccination coverage among young children, rates of contraceptive use, Vitamin A supplementation and skilled birth attendance.
Others include: HIV counselling and testing among women attending mantenatal care, and preventing new malaria infections among children by using insecticide- treated bed nets when they sleep. Federal and State governments receive incentive payments for better tackling governance and management issues in the health sector and for improving the quality of basic health services.
SOML will be implemented under the Federal Ministry of Health, in close cooperation with the Federal Ministry of Finance which will provide the financial oversight role while new health operation is expected to start implementation on August 1, 2015.
The operation will end after four years, in December 2019.
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