The Managing Partner of DGI Consult, who is also the co-convener of the Nigeria UHC Forum, Dr. Gafar Alawode, has called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to increase spending on health to facilitate the expansion of health insurance coverage for the poor and vulnerable in Nigeria.
Dr. Alawode made this call at the unveiling of Nigeria’s Health Sector Renewal Investment Initiative and the signing of the Health Renewal Compact by the federal and state governments, as well as development partners at the Old Banquet Hall, Presidential Villa, in Abuja.
The health system strengthening specialist, while delivering his goodwill message at the event, which was part of the activities marking the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) Day, applauded the president for prioritising health in his pre-election manifesto and post-election policy agenda.
Dr. Alawode urged the president to improve spending for health, especially to ensure that the equity fund for health at the state level is released to take care of the poor and the vulnerable.
Commending the president’s goal to leapfrog health insurance coverage to the poor, he said the financial architecture for health has to be revisited to make the giant aspiration a reality.
“We need to consider an innovative approach that will help us to pull a sizable amount of resources together to expand health insurance to the poor and vulnerable,” he said.
The co-convener of the Nigeria UHC Forum, a coalition of a wide array of stakeholders working towards raising the political prioritisation of health in Nigeria, said the group has identified some areas for innovative health financing.
“The Nigeria UHC Forum has identified a number of areas for innovative financing like the alcohol taxes, telecom taxes, tobacco taxes etc, and they are specifically asking for inter-ministerial committee that will look at this, mobilise the resources, and deploy it,” he said.
He also advocated an increment in the accountability bar in the health sector for the chief executive at the national and state level. He said that putting in place such mechanism is important for them to know how much of health the money being spent is buying, adding that it would make everyone alive to their responsibilities.
Dr. Alawode assured the presidency of the support of the Nigeria UHC Forum to ensuring that the ambitious goal of expanding health insurance to the poor and vulnerable Nigerians is achievable.
“We are with the government in this process of making history of being the first administration that will put Nigeria on the UHC course,” he said.
Watch him speak below:
