The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has commenced a leadership, management and governance capacity strengthening project at the primary health care level in Nigeria.

The project which is being carried out in partnership with the Development Governance International (DGI) Consult will assess primary healthcare governance and management and, through enabling structural measurable and incremental improvements, ultimately strengthening the healthcare system in pilot states of Adamawa, Kwara and Sokoto states.

A flurry of activities heralded the commencement of the capacity enhancement programme in Abuja, a high level stakeholders engagement workshop was organised to kick start the project. The meeting which had the leadership of health ministries and relevant agencies from the three states, representative of UNICEF, the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) and DGI was utilised to co-create the project methodology, processes and tools for local ownership and sustainability.

Chief Executive Officer of DGI, Dr Gafar Alawode, said the project "look forward to creating and sharing an effective model of leadership, governance and management capacity for the reproductive, maternal and neonatal care as well as for the health sector in general."

He stated further that the project will involve assessing the leadership, governance and management capacity of primary health care in the three states, develop capacity strengthening systems to address identified gaps and implement capacity strengthening plans with the focus on remarkably improving health system delivery in the states.

Dr Alawode noted that the project is designed to achieve impact at scale and ultimately strengthen governance and management of healthcare delivery in the three pilot states.

"We are going to use an innovative model of governance and management that has been used in the private sector and in the health sector as well, which will drive major aspects of the health system," he said.