On March 21, the World Bank’s Public Information Center, the InfoShop, in collaboration with the World Bank Africa Region’s Human Development Team, hosted a seminar on Health Insurance Reform in Nigeria. The seminar was organized in conjunction with the launch of a new World Bank publication entitled “Health Financing for Poor People: Resource Mobilization and Risk Sharing.” Yaw Ansu, Sector Director for the Africa Region’s Human Development Team at the World Bank, chaired the seminar, which featured presentations by Professor Eyitayo Lambo, Minister of Health for Nigeria, and Muhammed Lecky, Executive Director for the Nigeria Health Insurance Fund.
Lambo outlined the agenda of the health sector reform that he has undertaken since becoming Nigeria’s Minister of Health in 2003. He listed the main objectives of the reform, such as the provision of high quality, affordable care, the revitalization of primary health care, improvements in resource management, and increased public access and awareness.
Muhammed Lecky provided an overview of the impending health insurance plan in Nigeria and summarized the challenges associated with the measure. In particular, he mentioned the importance of public-private partnerships in making this plan a success and discussed the role of community-based health insurance systems.
The panel discussion that followed the presentations included remarks by Ok Pannenborg, Senior Advisor for the Africa Region’s Human Development Team, Alexander S. Preker, Lead Economist for the Africa Region’s Health Unit, and Anne Okigbo, Senior Operations Officer for the World Bank’s Africa Region.
In his remarks, Ok Pannenborg drew attention to the importance of trust and solidarity for introducing a new health insurance system and mentioned the correlation with the anti-corruption measures in the country. Alexander Preker outlined the World Bank position on health care financing. He mentioned that Nigeria’s approach was very innovative and that the experiences from this endeavor could be applied to many other African countries that are also undergoing health care system reforms. Anne Okigbo shared her concerns as to how Nigeria’s plan would deal with budget allocation delays and its impact on the taxation of civil servants.
The question and answer period that followed addressed such issues as the repercussions of the close collaboration between the private sector and HMOs, the separation of health care system financing and the provision of quality health care, the possibility of increasing the number of non-physician practitioners providing some primary care services, and the issue of adequate human resource development.
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