Global Fund tasks Nigeria to sustain, scale up COVID-19 investments

…as response grant closes in June

The Global Fund and health sector stakeholders have tasked Nigeria to sustain and scale up critical health investments made during the COVID-19 pandemic to strengthen disease preparedness, as the COVID-19 Response Mechanism (C19RM) grant draws to a close at the end of June.

The Fund made this call at the National Close-Out Meeting of the C19RM grant in Abuja on Thursday, noting that the true test of the programme’s success will be whether the gains achieved are preserved and expanded beyond donor funding.

The grant financed interventions spanning disease surveillance, oxygen infrastructure, supply chain systems and other health sector investments aimed at strengthening the country’s response to the pandemic and improving health system resilience.

Ketevan Bejanishvili, Disease Fund Manager at the Global Fund, said the programme represented an unprecedented mobilisation of resources across the Global Fund ecosystem, with Nigeria emerging as the largest beneficiary of the investment.

“We are eager to hear what worked but also what must be sustained and scaled,” Bejanishvili said, noting that discussions at the close-out meeting would help shape future investments in pandemic preparedness and resilient health systems in Nigeria.

She said the meeting offered an opportunity to assess the programme’s achievements and identify measures needed to preserve the gains recorded.

Tajudeen Ibrahim, Executive Secretary of the Global Fund Country Coordinating Mechanism (CCM)-Nigeria, said stakeholders must now focus on ensuring that the investments continue to benefit Nigerians beyond the life of the grant. He stressed that preserving the gains would require deliberate action from both public and private sector stakeholders.

“The only concern we have now as CCM, on behalf of the stakeholders, is how we are going to sustain this investment moving forward,” Ibrahim said. According to him, the COVID-19 funding created a rare opportunity for deliberate investment in health infrastructure at a scale not seen in years.

He added that Nigeria had “benefited maximally” from the intervention and called on stakeholders across the public and private sectors to ensure that the infrastructure and systems established under the programme are maintained and utilised effectively.

Recalling the first phase of the intervention, which ran between 2021 and 2023, he said the programme enabled a level of health infrastructure investment that had not previously been possible.

He highlighted several key investments made through the programme, including oxygen systems, warehousing facilities and laboratory infrastructure. “Just to mention a few, we had deliberate investment around oxygen therapy, both consumables and infrastructure,” he said.

In addition, he said substantial investments were made in public health laboratories, strengthening the country’s diagnostic and disease surveillance capabilities. “With this put together, you can agree with me that Nigeria has benefited maximally and we all need to rise to the occasion and make sure that this investment benefits Nigerians,” Ibrahim added.

He stressed that sustainability must become an immediate priority and challenged stakeholders to demonstrate how some of the investments such as oxygen systems, would translate into tangible benefits for citizens.

Also speaking at the event, Temitope Ilori Director-General of the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) said the benefits of the investments extend beyond COVID-19 and have contributed to broader efforts to strengthen the resilience of Nigeria’s health system.

“The true value of these investments will be measured by how effectively they are integrated into routine systems, maintained over time and leveraged to improve health outcomes for Nigerians,” she said.

Ilori noted that one of the most enduring achievements of the programme was the partnership forged among government institutions, development partners, implementing agencies, healthcare workers and communities during the pandemic response.

She commended the Global Fund, the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC), the National Tuberculosis, Leprosy and Buruli Ulcer Control Programme, state governments and implementing partners for their contributions to the successful implementation of the grant.