Nigeria struggles to fix N68b deficit funding gap

The 420,000 women and children targeted are an extra to overall targets of Millennium Development Goals in what officials call a harmonised country plan for priority interventions, calling on states and international partners to improve their programming and focus more resources in target areas.The target 420,000 lives to be saved could cost a projected N105.6 […]

The 420,000 women and children targeted are an extra to overall targets of Millennium Development Goals in what officials call a harmonised country plan for priority interventions, calling on states and international partners to improve their programming and focus more resources in target areas.
The target 420,000 lives to be saved could cost a projected N105.6 billion ($650m), and Nigeria Friday signed a N2.4 billion ($15m) agreement with the Norwegian government and Clinton Health Foundation in efforts to close the funding gap.
Chukwu said “available commitments” amount to N19.7 billion ($121m) currently being mobilised from groups as UNICEF, Global Funds, USAID, General Electric and private sector health alliance.
Despite the mobilisations, a funding gap of N48.6 billion ($299 m) still exists he said.
The funding agreement with the Norwegian government and Clinton Health Foundation, signed in Abuja, hopes to reduce maternal and neonatal deaths by 40% by next year in three states—Kaduna, Kano, Katsina.
Some 2,961 deaths among women and 19,205 deaths among newborns could be prevented, said the minister.
“When we prevent these deaths, we can count them as lives that have been saved,” he said during talks with Norwegian ambassador to Nigeria Rolf Ree at the ministry headquarters in Abuja.
“Families across the country, especially those with mothers and children who will directly or indirectly be affected by this project will continue to be grateful to the government of Norway,” he said.
Moves toward the agreement began in the tenure of former Norwegian prime minister Jens Stoltenberg, who co-chaired the UN Commission on Life-Saving Commodities for Women and Children, alongside President Goodluck Jonathan, before becoming secretary-general of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).
Ree said signing the agreement was a “commitment of the Norwegian government” to programmes to reduce child deaths, support scaling up of life-saving commodities and help fund health programmes.