Stakeholders seek evidence-driven strategy to improve healthcare access

The National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) is urging stakeholders to develop an evidence-driven health financing research agenda in Nigeria. Director-General Dr Kelechi Ohiri emphasized the need for the country to take greater ownership of research informing its health financing policies and reforms. He argued that relying on episodic studies had hindered Nigeria's ability to build a sustained evidence base for long-term reforms.

Ohiri stressed that research sovereignty meant Nigeria should define its own research priorities and use the findings to guide implementation directly. The NHIA's inaugural forum in Abuja reviewed five NHIA-commissioned studies and explored health financing experiences from Ethiopia, Ghana, and India. The authority aims to establish a national health financing observatory, a national research agenda, 15 research action plans, and regional collaboration frameworks.

The World Health Organisation Representative in Nigeria, Dr Pavel Ursu, highlighted the importance of health financing as foundational to universal health coverage and the need for implementation research to answer questions arising from health sector reforms. Dr Yetunde Aluko from the Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research stressed that research should become part of a continuous national learning system involving stakeholders to guide health financing reforms effectively.