By Rakiya A.Muhammad
Nigeria is at a critical point in its journey towards health advancement with the ambitious Triple Billion Targets and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) demanding universal health coverage, improved health and wellbeing, and resilient emergency health systems.
The Triple Billion Targets, a crucial initiative by the World Health Organisation, aim to ensure that an additional billion individuals gain access to universal health coverage; one billion more are protected from health emergencies, and another billion experience improved health and wellbeing.
According to the WHO Global Triple Analysis, the current trajectory indicates that the globe will achieve the target of one billion additional individuals experiencing improved health and wellbeing by 2025. However, the world is not on track to achieve the related Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 or the target of one billion additional individuals benefiting from universal health coverage by 2025.
The report also points out that global progress is not on pace to meet the goal of one billion additional people having improved health emergency protection by 2025.
“Although the coverage of vaccinations for high-priority pathogens shows improvement relative to the COVID-19 pandemic-related disruptions in 2020–2021, it has not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels,” it states.
“The overall measures of progress are largely driven by increased HIV service coverage. The disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic to many indicators, such as those on routine childhood vaccination and tuberculosis, are recovering but still require concerted effort to close the gaps and accelerate action towards the Sustainable Development Goal.”
WHO Data indicates that in Nigeria, the projected number of individuals anticipated to experience improved health and wellbeing by 2025 is 54.3 million compared to 2018.
By 2025, the projected number of additional individuals anticipated to be covered by essential services without facing financial hardship in the country is 14.9 million compared to 2018.
Futhermore, in Nigeria, an additional 7.7 million individuals will be protected from health emergencies by 2025, compared to 2018, according to the data.
Nigeria’s health initiatives align closely with the health-related Sustainable Development Goals. The nation promotes efforts focusing on nutrition, maternal and child health, mental health awareness, and lifestyle changes.
Gaps Remain Large
However, despite strides made in various health indicators, Nigeria still grapples with challenges such as neonatal mortality, maternal mortality, infectious diseases, and inadequate access to healthcare.
For example, the Democratic Health Survey 2023-2024 observes that the neonatal mortality rate has fluctuated over time and is approximately equivalent to the 1990 NDHS (42 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1990 versus 41 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2023-2024).
The under-fiive mortality rate for the 5 years preceding each survey rose from 193 deaths per 1,000 live births in the 1990 NDHS to 201 deaths per 1,000 live births in the 2003 NDHS but has generally decreased to 110 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2023–24.
The infant mortality rate fell from 87 fatalities per 1,000 live births in the 1990 NDHS to 63 in the 2023-24 NDHS.
Trends in maternal care indicators show the percentage of live births with skilled assistance during delivery increased steadily from 32% in the 1990 NDHS to 46% in the 2023–24 NDHS. The rate of women receiving a postnatal check during the first 2 days after delivery has also increased steadily, from 30% in 2008 to 43% in 2023–24. It is evident that gaps persist.
The findings of a mid-term review of Nigeria’s progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals indicate that Nigeria possesses a framework across various levels of government to facilitate the effective implementation of the SDGs, in contrast to the SDG baseline report of 2016 and the SDG index rankings from 2019 to 2022.
However the progress review conducted by Ekere Marculey Emah of the Department of International Relations/Peace & Security Studies at Obong University, identifies a significant impediment to implementation.
” Nigeria’s progress towards achieving the SDGs in 2030 has been slow and poor; and corruption among public officials, poor budgetary allocations to health and education, rising poverty and youth unemployment rates, and weak development policies and programs, are the major challenges affecting the progress of SDGs implementation in Nigeria,” he notes.
“There is the urgent need to review and strengthen government institutions and policies, introduce stringent laws against corruption, establish mechanisms for public transparency and accountability in governance, and promote reward good behaviours in public offices.”
In their research on Progress towards SDG3 Healthy Lives in Nigeria, Roberta Ndamoɓissi, Barcelona Castrilo, and Bala Yusuf-Yunusa note that “sound massive evidence was generated, which has revealed that Nigeria is unlikely to achieve the global agenda of SDG3 by 2030.”
Low levels of public funding for health care, insufficient local capacity to control primary health care, high out-of-pocket costs for households seeking medical treatment, a growing population, and extreme poverty are among the key factors they cite as primary driving forces.
Also, an evaluation of the progress toward the SDGs in Nigeria from 1999 to 2022 identifies the nation’s health sector as facing significant challenges due to inadequate funding and dilapidated infrastructure, which are hindering progress towards achieving the SDGs by 2030.
The study findings indicate that while there has been an increase in annual budgetary allocations to the health sector in Nigeria over the study period, the percentage increase has not been sufficient to address the significant challenges facing the sector.
It highlights the issues of increasing rates of child and maternal mortality, decreasing rates of healthcare personnel per patient, and dilapidated infrastructure in Nigerian hospitals.
The study strongly recommends that the Nigerian government prioritise increased health funding and implement robust monitoring and evaluation mechanisms to ensure the effective use of funds. It also underscores the need to address the health sector’s infrastructural deficit, which is crucial for long-term progress toward reaching the SDGs in Nigeria.
Mallama Halima, a health worker, laments multiple challenges, such as funding deficiencies, infrastructural inefficiencies, and a lack of qualified personnel.
“These obstacles impede our advancement toward the Triple Billion Targets,” says Halima.
“Nigeria, with its substantial share of the global disease burden, must urgently address these issues to achieve the Triple Billion Targets. Resolving these issues is essential for attaining the ambitious health goals set by the World Health Organisation.”
Game-Changing Approaches
Nigeria’s Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Professor Muhammad Ali Pate affirms the Ministry was implementing a 4-point blueprint strategy to transform the health sector under the President’s direction.
The agenda encompasses enhancing governance, unleashing the healthcare value chain, improving population health outcomes, and ensuring the health security of Nigerians. It aims to promote medical industrialisation, generate employment for young Nigerians by producing necessities, such as commodities, bed nets, test kits, and other components of the healthcare value chain, and enhance the accessibility and affordability of quality healthcare for all Nigerians.
He urges development partners and other stakeholders to continue collaborating with the government as they work to improve the health of all Nigerians.
Amina Ahmed, a rights advocate, , conveys a sense of hope regarding the development while emphasising the importance of ramping up efforts to make high-quality healthcare more widely available and affordable in Nigeria.
“Access to healthcare should be a right, not a privilege,” she stresses. “We need better facilities and services to improve health outcomes for all citizens and ensure everyone can lead a healthy life.”
