Nigeria has one of the lowest per capita health expenditures in the world and spends less on health than other countries with comparable income levels. The GFF partnership works with the government of Nigeria to increase and improve the efficiency of funding for the implementation of the National Health Act, with the goal of improving Nigerians' health, particularly the vulnerable and underserved populations. Nigeria prioritizes the reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health and nutrition agenda (RMNCAH+N) for human capital development. To that end, the Nigeria District Health Information Systems (DHIS) platform is used to collect the data and RMNCAH+N indicators that are required to track progress toward goal achievement.

The Countdown to 2030 country collaboration supports the MoH, including the DHIS Technical Task Teams and the Integrated Health Data Management Team (IHDMT), to generate and disseminate periodic national and subnational estimates using DHIS2 and other available data to inform the tracking of progress and performance of the national plan and strategy for RMNCAH+N and related service delivery. The project will also contribute analyses of Nigerian data to multi-country studies  and undertake secondary analyses of quantitative data, primary qualitative research or both of these on priority topics identified by stakeholders and through monitoring analyses.

Salisu Ladan was selected as a Countdown fellow for 2024.

Specifically, the Countdown collaboration will result in:

• Annual policy briefs on progress of the national RMNCAH+N plan and strategy for stakeholder dissemination.
• Short reports on Nigeria-specific analyses and results for each of the following topics: maternal and newborn health, with a focus on place of delivery and its strategy implications (1 or more reports); family planning coverage indicators (1 or more reports); immunization coverage indicators (1 or more reports).
• At least one research paper with joint authorship of key actors submitted to a peer-reviewed journal.
• Presentations for country review and dissemination workshops