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WHA79 confirms that Nigeria’s reforms are moving with the emerging global consensus on country ownership, sustainable financing, workforce mobility, antimicrobial resistance and health sovereignty. Under President Tinubu and Professor Pate, the course has been set. Its worth will rest on a simpler test: whether it delivers reliable care, financial protection and better health for Nigerians.
The seventy-ninth World Health Assembly, which concluded in Geneva on 23 May, may be remembered less for its resolutions than for the view of health expressed there. Across deliberations on financing, antimicrobial resistance, workforce mobility, emergency preparedness and universal health coverage, health was treated as a concern of economic policy, industrial development, national security and social resilience.
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The Assembly adopted the WHO Strategy on the Economics of Health for All 2026–2030, approved an updated Global Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance and amended the WHO Global Code on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel. Together, these decisions placed sustainable financing, One Health action, ethical recruitment and co-investment within a wider view of health as a foundation of development.
Nigeria had already incorporated these principles into its reforms: national ownership, coherent planning, stronger primary healthcare, domestic financing, local manufacturing, workforce development, digital systems, regulatory capacity, community participation and emergency preparedness.
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That direction was established on 12 December 2023 when President Bola Ahmed Tinubu launched the Nigeria Health Sector Renewal Investment Initiative and secured the Health Renewal Compact among the Federal Government, the thirty-six states, the Federal Capital Territory and development partners. Implemented through the Sector-Wide Approach (SWAp), it replaced fragmented programmes with common priorities, coordinated implementation and clearer accountability. The Presidential Initiative to Unlock the Healthcare Value Chain (PVAC) extended the same logic into manufacturing, investment, regulation, research and supply security. Under the leadership of the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Professor Muhammad Ali Pate, presidential intent has become a national reform programme.
The framework brings governments, public institutions, development partners and private enterprise together around shared priorities. It also bears directly on WHA79’s decision to pursue a Member State-led, WHO-hosted, reform of a global health architecture weakened by fragmentation, duplication and poor alignment with country priorities. Nigeria presented its experience of one plan, one budget and one reporting framework, with all thirty-six governors and development partners aligned to national priorities. That experience gave substance to its call for country ownership and fair African representation.
Public Health at National Scale
The value of national reform is determined far from the conference room — in the clinic where a woman seeks antenatal care, the community where a child is due for vaccination, and the household deciding whether it can afford treatment. Nigeria’s reform programme is beginning to acquire meaning in those places.
Across the federation, revitalisation has commenced in more than 4,100 primary healthcare centres, with over 3,100 completed. What matters is what functioning facilities make possible: earlier diagnosis, safer deliveries, routine immunisation and dependable care closer to home.
Financial protection is also widening. More than six million Nigerians entered health insurance between 2023 and 2025. The Federal Government financed more than 40,000 caesarean sections, placing lifesaving obstetric care within the reach of women for whom the cost might otherwise have proved prohibitive. This accords with WHA79’s new strategy for integrated emergency, critical and operative care.
Infrastructure cannot provide care without people, equipment and supplies. More than 78,000 frontline health workers have been trained towards a target of 120,000, while recruitment has increased. Essential medicines, maternal and newborn supplies, reproductive-health equipment and cold-chain facilities have also been deployed nationwide. These investments attract less attention than a new hospital, but often determine whether a facility can provide care.
Nigeria remains the designated host of the Fifth Global High-Level Ministerial Conference on Antimicrobial Resistance. Although the June meeting was postponed, preparations continue. The mandate recognises Nigeria’s convening role and gives weight to its case that AMR containment depends on functional primary healthcare, capable laboratories, quality-assured medicines, effective regulation, workforce competence and coordination across human, animal, agricultural and environmental systems.
Nigeria’s outbreak responses offer another indication of public health capacity. It became the first African country to deploy the mpox vaccine and mounted large vaccination campaigns against cholera and meningitis. Annual attendance at health facilities rose from 34.5 million in 2023 to 43 million in 2025, alongside gains in antenatal care, skilled birth attendance and routine immunisation.
Serious burdens remain. Maternal and child mortality are still unacceptably high, inequalities between states persist, and many communities lack dependable access to quality care. The relevant test is whether a country has the direction, institutions and instruments to confront such problems at scale. On that measure, Nigeria’s reforms deserve wider recognition.
Nigeria’s Leadership on Antimicrobial Resistance
WHA79’s updated AMR plan recognises antimicrobial resistance as a threat to human health, animal health, agriculture, food systems and the environment. Its prevention-first approach places laboratories, surveillance, infection control, vaccination, water and sanitation, responsible prescribing and reliable access to quality medicines within a single One Health framework.
Nigeria had begun assembling these elements through its Second One Health National Action Plan on AMR 2024–2028, NHSRII, SWAp arrangements, regulatory reforms, investments in diagnostics and laboratories, and local production of health commodities. It treats AMR as a health-system and governance challenge, not a narrow question of antibiotic use.
Nigeria remains the designated host of the Fifth Global High-Level Ministerial Conference on Antimicrobial Resistance. Although the June meeting was postponed, preparations continue. The mandate recognises Nigeria’s convening role and gives weight to its case that AMR containment depends on functional primary healthcare, capable laboratories, quality-assured medicines, effective regulation, workforce competence and coordination across human, animal, agricultural and environmental systems.
A New Compact on Health-Worker Mobility
The National Policy on Health Workforce Migration, approved in 2024, treats mobility as a governance issue shaped by global demand, wage differentials, training capacity, and professional rights.
The amended WHO Code encourages co-investment to benefit source and destination countries. Countries benefiting from Nigerian-trained professionals should participate in partnerships for education, specialist training, institutional development and workforce expansion. International mobility cannot be fair if the systems that produce health workers are weakened by the labour markets that depend upon them.
Leadership from Every LGA
The National Health Fellowship recruited one young fellow from each of the 774 local government areas; its fellows have undertaken more than 1,500 community projects. This connects national reform with local knowledge, public service and leadership succession.
Traditional and religious leaders are also assuming a deeper role in public health policy. Vaccination, maternal health, nutrition, antimicrobial stewardship and outbreak response are shaped within families, congregations and communities. Trusted social institutions influence behaviour, encourage service uptake, and reinforce accountability. Their formal inclusion, alongside local governments, civil society and the private sector, has broadened the Health Renewal Compact beyond its original institutional signatories.
Nigeria’s scale gives its progress continental consequence. A stronger health system improves regional surveillance, broadens Africa’s market for health products and adds weight in negotiations over financing, technology and access. Its success will help determine whether Africa’s public health agenda becomes operational.
Health Sovereignty Through Production
COVID-19 demonstrated the danger of dependence on external markets for vaccines, diagnostics, medicines, oxygen and other critical products. Through PVAC, Nigeria has organised demand, improved the policy environment for manufacturers and mobilised investment in pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, vaccines, medical oxygen, devices and research.
The Presidential Executive Order on health-sector manufacturing has supported local producers, while Medipool is being established as a pooled procurement mechanism. Financing commitments from the European Investment Bank and Afreximbank are intended to support more than ninety projects valued at about US$5 billion.
Nigeria seeks the ability to produce, test, regulate, purchase and deploy health technologies within a coherent national system. Investments in digital health, clinical research, genomics and regulation also correspond with WHA79’s emphasis on precision medicine and stronger pharmacovigilance, including the responsible use of digital tools and real-world data. These capabilities would support routine services, outbreak response and future preparedness, while contributing to employment, research and industrial development.
Nigeria’s Continental Responsibility
Nigeria’s reforms accord with the African Union and Africa CDC’s New Public Health Order, which emphasises capable institutions, expanded manufacturing, workforce development, domestic investment and respectful international partnerships.
Nigeria’s scale gives its progress continental consequence. A stronger health system improves regional surveillance, broadens Africa’s market for health products and adds weight in negotiations over financing, technology and access. Its success will help determine whether Africa’s public health agenda becomes operational.
The Test of Delivery
The direction has been established; the harder work lies in sustaining it across the federation. That will require more reliable financing and more consistent results across states. Facilities must remain functional after construction, commodities available after initial distribution, and data useful for decisions, rather than reporting alone. Public trust must be earned through service, transparency and visible improvement.
The reform will ultimately be judged by functioning facilities, competent personnel, reliable diagnostics, safe medicines, financial protection, effective surveillance and measurable improvements in the lives of Nigerians.
Nigeria has established a reform architecture connecting primary healthcare, insurance, workforce policy, industrial development, health security, digital systems, regulation, research and community implementation. Its ambition is national, but its lessons reach beyond Nigeria.
WHA79 confirms that Nigeria’s reforms are moving with the emerging global consensus on country ownership, sustainable financing, workforce mobility, antimicrobial resistance and health sovereignty. Under President Tinubu and Professor Pate, the course has been set. Its worth will rest on a simpler test: whether it delivers reliable care, financial protection and better health for Nigerians.
Chinedu Moghalu is a lawyer, strategic communications expert, and public policy adviser with over two decades of leadership across government, international organisations, and development institutions. Currently, senior special adviser to Nigeria’s coordinating minister of health and social welfare.
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