Nigeria is close to establishing the Maternal Mortality Action (MAMA) Fund as part of ongoing negotiations for a US$500 million loan from the World Bank.
This is evident from a stakeholder engagement plan for Nigeria: Primary Health Care Strengthening Programme.
The initiative is part of the broader US$65 million Investment Project Financing (IPF) of the HOPE Health Programme, which aims to improve access to quality health services across Nigeria.
The establishment of the MAMA Fund is a critical step in Nigeria’s efforts to reduce maternal and child mortality rates and achieve its human capital development goals.
According to the World Bank document, the MAMA Fund will focus on strengthening primary health care (PHC) across Nigeria, targeting rural and underserved populations.
The $15 million fund will support public and private sector innovations aimed at improving maternal and child health care.
The document states: “The MAMA Fund’s innovation investments focus primarily on strengthening primary health care (PHC) in lagging and climate-vulnerable states to enable them to address legacy issues and achieve ‘boost’. These types of service delivery innovations aim to expand coverage or quality of services at the population level, with a focus on underserved rural populations.
“The MAMA Innovation Fund is designed to support innovations in the public and private sectors aimed at improving the use and quality of maternal and child health interventions. The establishment and operation of the MAMA Fund will not only support innovations in the private sector aimed at improving the use and quality of maternal and child health interventions, but also partnerships with the public sector to test new approaches or scale up services to improve the delivery of reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health (RMNACH) services.
The program also provides $15 million for the development, procurement and deployment of a federated healthcare digital enterprise architecture. This component is designed to drive significant digital transformation in the Nigerian healthcare sector by digitizing key health information systems such as the electronic human resource management information system, the National Health Insurance Scheme and electronic health records.
