The National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) has launched the Nigeria Health Financing Observatory (NHFO), a platform designed to harmonise health financing data and strengthen transparency, accountability and evidence-based decision-making in the sector
Launching the platform in Abuja during the inaugural Nigeria Health Financing Research and Learning Forum, the NHIA Director-General, Dr Kelechi Ohiri, said fragmented information on health funding and expenditure had made it difficult to determine where resources were going and what impact they were having on health care delivery
The forum had the theme: ‘Evidence and Learning for Nigeria’s Health Financing Future: Building a Locally Led Research and Learning Ecosystem’
Ohiri said although Nigeria had increased health financing over the past 11 years, there was insufficient comparative and sub-national data to properly assess spending and outcomes
“We have multiple data sources, extremely fragmented And so, it is almost a starvation of evidence, a mix of data,” he said, stressing that the challenge was not only how much was spent but how funds were mobilised, distributed and utilised.
He said the average primary health care centre was funded by development partners, local, state and federal governments, with different institutions also responsible for personnel, vaccines, medicines and health insurance payments
“It is unclear We need to have more transparency and better understand intergovernmental fiscal transfers,” Ohiri said, adding that the observatory would help track state and local government contributions and the flow of resources across the health system.
He said the platform would provide comparative analytics, an evidence repository and subnational financing data, while supporting researchers, academics and civil society organisations
Ohiri said the success of the observatory would not be measured by its dashboards but whether its data influenced policy and improved health care outcomes
“Ultimately, the success of this observatory will be measured, not just by how beautiful the dashboards will be, but the policy decisions it implements and improves,” he said
He urged civil society groups to use the platform to hold government accountable based on evidence, while calling on government institutions to provide reliable and up-to-date budget and expenditure data
The managing principal of the Health Strategy and Delivery Foundation (HSDF), Dr Yewande Ogundeji, said the observatory would provide a common platform for researchers and policymakers to understand health financing
“No ownership without control for health financing,” she said, explaining that ownership requires setting priorities and understanding available resources
Ogundeji said the platform would track domestic and external financing, budgets and releases at national and subnational levels, with almost 200 indicators identified and validated for the first phase She added that future phases would introduce more indicators, as well as artificial intelligence-assisted search and predictive analysis.
The Executive Director of the WHO Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research, Dr Kumanan Rasanathan, said the observatory could strengthen Nigeria’s health sovereignty by enabling stakeholders to track where health resources were going and what they were achieving
Rasanathan said the initiative’s value would depend on data quality and use rather than the appearance of its dashboards, adding, “If you can realise this vision for real-time data, it will be a game changer”
Also speaking, the Managing Director of Nigeria Health Watch, Vivienne Ihekweazu, said the initiative would help identify research and learning gaps around NHIA’s priorities, including equity, access and coverage
She commended the NHIA for funding research by five institutions to address critical questions in the sector, describing the approach as an expression of research sovereignty and stressing the importance of locally funded research
The observatory, developed to harmonise health financing information from different sources, is expected to provide a common evidence base for policymakers, researchers, civil society and other stakeholders