OPM financing fellowship launched in Nigeria

Our Nigerian Results-Based Financing Fellowship has been launched in Abuja in the presence of the executive director of the Nigerian National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA). The Fellowship aims to support the NPHCDA in developing the capacity necessary to continue and expand its current Results-Based Financing (RBF) programme, and as such accelerate Nigeria’s progress towards universal health coverage.

As part of the Fellowship programme, which runs from March to December 2018, 14 Fellows selected from Nigerian health institutions at federal and state level will be trained in health financing and RBF techniques to enable them to become RBF technical assistants. Beyond general health financing and in-depth results-based financing, Fellows will also be trained in professional areas such as project management and presenting research data.

The structure of the Fellowship programme combines formal classroom teaching with extensive work-based activities. The knowledge base developed by Fellows through formal teaching will be consolidated and deepened over a variety of practical learning tasks and group activities, delivered as part of structured internship and supervised practice learning stages.

The Fellowship is part of our Health Financing Capacity Building Initiative (HFCBI), a concept developed by OPM’s health team to address the health financing capability gap faced by many governments in low- and middle-income countries. The HFCBI model aims to bring together excellence in global expertise and local potential with a view to building health financing capabilities of the highest standard, tailored to the needs of the local context.

Sam Franzen, OPM senior consultant, said: “OPM are firmly committed to developing local capacity and ensuring that our technical assistance programmes leave countries with the skills and capabilities to sustain reforms.  Over the last four years, OPM has been providing RBF technical assistance to support the Nigeria State Health Investment Project in Ondo, Adamawa, and Nasarawa. Through the fellowship we will be in a position to sustainably transition these technical responsibilities to the Nigerian Government; it is a very exciting time!”

We have worked in Nigeria for more than three decades, and opened our office in Abuja in 2014. We remain committed to building capacity in every sector within which we operate in the country. The Fellowship is the most recent example of our continued effort to seek out, nurture, and develop local practitioners. 

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