•Shah (right) and Dr. Imoseni
By Yinka Shokunbi Assistant Life Editor
With just two years to reach the targeted 2015 year for the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of zero-level in HIV infection, Nigeria would need to harmonise all her efforts at various levels of government, strengthen the weak areas and step up on the strong projects that are working. And, if everyone is enthusiastic, the country would surely achieve a zero mother-to-child transmission of HIV and subsequently a zero-HIV generation. These were the observation of the Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Dr. Rajiv Shah, when he ended his four-day visit to the country last week.
Shah, who, prior to his appointment as the USAID’s administrator, headed President Barack Obama’s Feed the Futire Food security Initiative, was in the country to see some of the projects funded by the U.S. Government and determine whether the projects are succeeding as planned.
One of the projects being sponsored by the agency is the Federal Government’s Save One Million Lives Initiative (SOMIL), which was launched last October and which equally received the boost of the UN Essential Commodities.
Shah, after his tour of the project located in the Lagos Island Maternity, the country’s busiest maternity, submitted that the US Government was satisfied with how the project is being implemented at the facility and, so, would continue to receive the support of the U.S. Government as long as the implementation of project is on course.
Dr. Shah lauded the hospital management’s zeal to achieve the zero level target of HIV infection by 2015 and observed, “We saw patients receiving their antiretroviral drugs to protect themselves and their children and we saw the laboratories have equipment and are able to do testing because the American government provided the resources for that.
“This hospital and its outstanding doctors, nurses and laboratory technicians demonstrate the success from 30 percent transmission to zero percent last year, 2012.
“Of the 61 cases of children who could have been infected, zero children were infected,” noted Shah during a media chat after the tour.
The USAID administrator thinks if the Federal Government could replicate what has happened at the Island Maternity in other parts of the country, “it would be well on its way to achieving the goal of saving one million lives and the United States is proud to be its partner to help achieve that outcome,” Shah stated.
The USAID Administrator expressed satisfaction at the outcome of the Save Motherhood Programme at the Island Maternity and promised more boost to the Save A Million Lives Initiative in 2013.
“Our plans at the USAID are to further reduce maternal deaths in Nigeria in this year and we are partnering with the Nigerian government and its financial commitment to the country in 2013,” stated Shah.
While meeting with some business entrepreneurs at the Tony Elumelu Foundation, Dr Shah expressed the desire of the USAID to do business with private individuals especially in technology innovation to boost healthcare delivery in the country.
He promised to mentor and promote private enterprises that have vision to impact positively on Nigerians and ameliorate hunger and poverty in the land; “as part of programmes to meet the MDG targets in 2015,” said Shah.
At the forum titled: Partnering with African Private Sectoe for Africa’s Development, Shah pointed out that USAID under President Barak Obama is committed to new business strategies that would for instance ensure that hunger and life-saving skills are promoted in developing countries including Nigeria.
“Promoting essential commodities that ensure safety of families is a priority for us. The specific things we do is look carefully at the data and evidence to see what is the most efficient way to save one million lives and we have discussed with the ministers in Abuja and we shall be supporting in activities like immunisation, providing malaria bed nets and support to families to protect children, improve nutrition for young children in particular among others,” observed the USAID leader.
According to him, the agency has decided to prioritise its programmes and focus on those that would make visible impact and bring results to the lives of the beneficiaries on whom the investments are made in the first place.
He said, “We have over three hundred thousands programmes around the world but we are focusing more on programmes that bring value to our investments; we changed the ways we do our evaluations and we have Consultants who visit our projects and do independent third party evaluations to ensure there is no corruption.”
He also emphasised that the agency is focussing more attention to science technology and innovations and how they transform lives especially in Africa, and urged Nigerian scientists to come together to develop innovations that would best be suitable to the Nigerian situation.
On the ‘Save One Million Lives Initiative’, Shah observed that this has eight objectives which include: improving Maternal Newborn and Child Health, Improving Routine Immunisation coverage, Eliminating Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV, Scaling up Access to essential Medicines and Commodities, Controlling Malaria, Improving Child Nutrition, Strengthening Logistics and Supply Chain Management as well as promotion of Innovation and Technology, of which USAID is well committed to supporting and funding in agreement with its standards.
Nigeria would however achieve the target, he said, “if her government can be more focussed and directional to the areas where things are working perfectly well for her people”.