The Countdown to 2030 country collaboration in Nigeria is a partnership between the University of Ibadan, the Centre for Global Child Health at the Hospital for Sick Children, the Ministry of Health (MoH), the Global Financing Facility (GFF), the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF. It aims to strengthen the analysis and synthesis of health data to inform national and local reviews of progress and performance in the context of Nigeria’s national health plans and the GFF investment case for reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health and nutrition (RMNCAH+N).

CC: Kaytor via Flickr/ Beautiful ladies in the sun
Background
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.
Outputs, Products, Programs for 2023 – 2025
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
Nigeria Countdown Collaboration Team
University of Ibadan, Nigeria

Adebola Orimadegun

Ayodele Jegede

Kayode Osungbade

Akanni Lawanson

Oladejo Adepoju

Joshua Akinyemi
Centre for Global Child Health, Hospital for Sick Children, Canada

Dan Fridman

Christina Oh

Zulfiqar Bhutta
2024 Countdown Fellow (National AIDS and STD Control Programme, Federal Ministry of Health)
