Victoria Mbangwa
As healthcare costs continue to push millions of Nigerians into poverty, the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) has launched a four-day National Health Financing Policy Dialogue in Abuja to design a new roadmap that could ease the burden on households.
Opening the dialogue on Monday, NHIA Director-General, Dr. Kelechi Ohiri, warned that Nigeria’s health system is at a crossroads. He noted that donor support is shrinking while out-of-pocket payments already among the highest in Africa remain the primary way citizens fund healthcare.
“Reliance on donor funding is declining, while the burden of disease is rising. Nigeria must increasingly depend on domestic resources to achieve universal health coverage,” Ohiri said.
He identified weak financial protection, poor coordination across federal, state, and local levels, and limited private sector engagement as some of the country’s biggest challenges.
The policy dialogue, convening stakeholders from government, civil society, academia, and development partners, aims to craft a unified framework for sustainable health financing. It also builds on Nigeria’s commitments at the World Health Assembly to strengthen expenditure tracking and boost domestic health investment.
Ohiri stressed that the discussions go beyond bureaucracy. “Achieving sustainable and equitable health financing will require collaboration between government, civil society, development partners, academia, and the private sector,” he said.
The meeting is expected to conclude with a roadmap setting out concrete commitments to reform health financing and reduce Nigerians’ reliance on out-of-pocket spending.
