Group Advocates Inclusion Of CSOs In Nigeria’s Health Sector Reform Committee

Posted by Eric Ojo African News, Featured, Latest Headlines, News, News Across Nigeria, News From The State Saturday, September 11th, 2021

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – Africa’s frontline civil society organization, Connected Development (CODE) has called for the inclusion of civil society organisations (CSOs) in the recently instituted Health Sector Reform Committee approved by the Nigerian President, Mohammadu Buhari.

President Buhari’s approval of the Committee and appointment of Vice-President Yemi Osibanjo as Chairman offers an avenue for intersectional collaboration on the review of healthcare reform adopted in the past two decades in the West African nation.

In a statement by its Communications Associate, Adaora Okoye on Friday, CODE commended the President for the initiative and added that CSO’s inclusion will foster greater accountability and representation of citizens’ interest.

“It is pertinent for CSOs to be a part of this committee in order to bring visibility to the efforts being made to reform Nigeria’s healthcare system as well as keep the committee accountable”, the statement said.

According to the statement, owing to the reality that CSOs represent the interests of the citizens, having them serve as members of the Committee will provide more insight and invaluable resources to the already constituted committee.

“CODE insists that governance is the responsibility of all Nigerians, and when government processes are participatory and transparent, it brings sustainable development and growth”, it further explained.

CODE’s Chief Executive and Founder of Follow The Money, Hamzat Lawal said the development of the new health sector reform programme has been a long time coming especially considering the present condition of Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs) across Nigeria.

“The involvement of civil society leaders who have a strong portfolio in primary healthcare interventions is paramount”, he stressed.

It would be recalled that CODE’s social accountability initiative, Follow The Money’s recent research on the state of PHCs in Nigeria revealed that only 20 percent of the PHCs in fifteen states are functional.

Moreover, the field-based research work assessed the readiness of the PHCs to receive, store and effectively administer vaccines, randomly selecting 90 PHCs across 15 states from the six geo-political zones in the country and found them wanting.

Project Lead and Programmes Associate at CODE, Pearl Utuk, noted that the research revealed such deficiencies as lack of access to clean water and electricity.

“In some PHCs, they testified to using rain water to clean up and deliver babies. This shows the abysmal state of the healthcare system which the healthcare reform should address”, she added.

In a bid to promote accountability and transparency, CODE launched a research to assess the state of PHC facilities by mobilizing young people from our pool of over 8000 community champions across every geo-political zone in Nigeria, to advocate for the provision of quality health-care services, transparency in the distribution of COVID-19 Vaccines and Accountability of all COVID-19 Relief Materials.