By: Nana
Appiah Acquaye
MTN Group Foundation and the
Gates Foundation have launched the Nigeria Maternal Health Multiplier, a
four-year initiative aimed at helping 500,000 women access higher-quality
maternal health care by 2030.
The initiative will use an
integrated digital ecosystem connecting women, frontline health workers and
primary health care facilities, with plans to equip 5,000 frontline health
workers with tools to identify complications from pregnancy and childbirth early
and enable 500 health facilities to deliver more consistent, higher-quality
maternal health care.
The partnership was
announced at Semafor’s Next 3 Billion event on the sidelines of the 81st
session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
The initiative will
initially receive approximately US$25 million in investment between 2026 and
2030 through direct and in-kind contributions from the Gates Foundation and
MTN. The investment is intended to catalyse additional funding and support
future expansion into other markets.
The Maternal Health
Multiplier will combine AI-enabled, phone-based decision support tools for
frontline health workers and mothers with affordable smartphones and mobile
data, as well as improved connectivity at health care facilities.
The platform is designed to
complement Nigeria’s ongoing maternal and child health reforms and builds on
the Federal Ministry of Health’s Maternal and Neonatal Mortality Reduction
Innovation Initiative (MAMII), which is being deployed under its Sector-Wide
Approach (SWAp).
“For too long, the biggest
barrier to improving service delivery in Nigeria, whether in health,
agriculture, or education, has not been a lack of innovations, but a lack of
focus on the foundational systems necessary to drive adoption,” said Dr. Bosun
Tijani, Nigeria’s Minister of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy.
“Partnerships like this
reflect the kind of collaboration we want to see more of in Nigeria—one that
puts the country’s digital transformation to work for the people who need it
most.”
The initiative will provide
connected devices to frontline health workers to give them access to real-time
guidance, while affordable phone and data access will be made available to
pregnant women to reduce cost barriers to digital health services.
Improved connectivity at
primary health care facilities will also form part of the programme, with the
partners seeking to ensure access to care and digital tools is not determined
by where a woman lives.
“Strengthening primary
healthcare and empowering the frontline health workers who deliver it are core
to our health sector reforms,” said Dr. Muhammad Ali Pate, Nigeria’s
coordinating minister of health and social welfare.
“Partnerships that work with
our existing health systems, rather than around them, are exactly what’s needed
to reach mothers who are still falling through the cracks. We welcome this
collaboration and look forward to it strengthening the work already underway.”
The partnership comes amid
continued challenges in maternal health across Africa. According to the
announcement, maternal deaths globally have fallen by 40% since 2000, but
progress has stalled, and the risk of maternal death remains significantly
higher in sub-Saharan Africa than in Western Europe.
Nigeria accounts for nearly
30% of maternal deaths worldwide, while only 59% of women complete four or more
antenatal care visits, according to figures cited by the partners.
The initiative will
therefore focus on strengthening access to timely information, care and
follow-up services throughout pregnancy, childbirth and the postnatal period,
particularly in underserved communities.
MTN Group Foundation and the
Gates Foundation said the Nigeria programme is intended to provide an
affordable, reliable and consistent model that can eventually support expansion
into other markets.
