Health Research in Nigeria: Kudos to FMOH

The discussion was focused on the need to review the Nigeria’s Health Research Policy which has been in a draft format since 2006 and equally to have a national health research agenda that is robust capable of catalysing use of evidence via research to inform policies and programmes in Nigeria. The informal discussion continued during […]

The discussion was focused on the need to review the Nigeria’s Health Research Policy which has been in a draft format since 2006 and equally to have a national health research agenda that is robust capable of catalysing use of evidence via research to inform policies and programmes in Nigeria. The informal discussion continued during the April 2013 Nigeria’s national workshop on the Commission of Information and Accountability for Women and Children Health development of national road map for its implementation.
From my informal dialogue I discovered that many relevant stakeholders and development partners have been also behind the scene exerting diplomatic pressure to the FMOH to lead the process to review the national health research policy. After dillydally for some couple of months, I developed and submitted a personal informal memo to the  FMOH with the hope that it will be use to catalyse the review process.
I termed my memo “Reviving the National Agenda for Health Research” and made reference to 2 data source to justify why Nigeria should review the health research policy. One document referred was the National Strategic Health Development Plan (NSHDP) 2010 – 2015 which has prioritised health research in its 8th priority as follows;
1.     “To utilize research to inform policy, programming, improve health, achieve nationally and internationally health-related development goals and contribute to the global knowledge platform
2.    To strengthen the stewardship role of governments at all levels for gender sensitive research and knowledge management systems
3.    To finalise the Health Research Policy at Federal level and develop gender sensitive health research policies at State levels and health research strategies at State and LGA levels
4.    To mobilise adequate financial resources to support health research at all levels ( at least 2% of health budget)
5.    To build institutional capacities to promote, undertake and utilize research for evidence-based policy making in health at all levels
6.    To facilitate the convening of technical working groups to finalise or develop health research policies and strategies all levels.
7.    To establish Health research steering committees at all levels to shepherd research activities at all levels.”
Another source of justification for Nigeria to invest in health research was the 2008 Algiers Ministerial Conference on Research for Health in the African Region that was held 23 June – 26 June 2008. The major objective of the 2008 Algiers Ministerial Conference was to bring ministers from the African Region together with researchers, NGOs, donors and the private sector in order to strengthen commitments and to agree on a common declaration and action plan. The Health Ministers including that of Nigeria and heads of delegation of African countries have considered that there were “ inadequate institutional, infrastructural and regulatory capacity to conduct high-quality investigation in public health, basic science, product development and operational research; increasing gap in the application of existing and new technologies for improvement of public health in our countries and the need to expand access to appropriate and cost-effective tools to address numerous health problems.”
The Health Ministers have committed to work together to give the necessary impetus to the strengthening of national health research systems, national information and knowledge management systems through the optimization of investments, better coordination of our action and enhanced management in order to improve the health of the people of Africa.
Also committed to launch implementation of the following before the end of 2009:
1.    “To establish or strengthen coordination within the health sector and among other sectors contributing to the development of science and technology including in health, and establish or strengthen governance structures to promote ethics and increase public trust in research.
2.    To develop or strengthen adequate national health research policies and strategic frameworks that are based on systematic and standardized assessments of national health research and knowledge systems.
3.    To expand the health research agenda to include broad multidimensional determinants of health.
4.    To link health research and development efforts with health needs and explore opportunities for partnerships between governments, universities, private sector and civil society organizations.”
The personal memo was concluded by listing the objectives to be achieved by those concerned stakeholders as follows;  
1.    To support the revival of the national health research agenda, review and finalisation of national health research policies.
2.    To support FMOH to establish national steering committee/technical working group responsible for tracking and reporting on the national research agenda based on agreed indicators.
3.    To support the FMOH in documentation of relevant health research with potential to influence policies and health system and support organising an annual national health research symposium and innovatively encourage improved research skills in- country and emergence of national peer review journals on health system and policies.
It was with joy that I attended the Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH) convened 1st meeting of the technical working group to review, finalise and disseminate the moribund national health research policy. The meeting took place on Tuesday 13th August 2013 in Abuja with funding from PATHS 2 Project. What is needed from all Nigerians is to now support the FMOH to finalise the policy and to also strategically support the policy implementation.
All comments to Dr Aminu Magashi at [email protected]