LAGOS – Following recent progress and commitment towards providing health coverage for all Nigerians, the National Health Insurance Scheme, NHIS, has been granted membership of Joint Learning Network, JLN.

JLN is a platform financed by the World Bank; Department for International Development, DFID; Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for exchange between countries implementing health financing reforms aimed at achieving universal health coverage.

Executive Secretary of NHIS, Dr. Waziri Dogo-Mohammed, in a statement, said the country’s membership of JLN was as a sign that it can attain universal coverage by 2015.

Dogo-Mohammed noted that as a member of JLN, the country through the scheme can now access an array of JLN resources and now eligible to apply for funding for learning activities via JLF.

He added that the country was also eligible to participate in one or more of JLN “Technical Tracks,” including provider payment mechanism, information technology, quality and expanding coverage, depending on key challenges and learning priorities.

NHIS was launched in 2005 by then President Olusegun Obasanjo with a mandate to ensure universal health coverage for all Nigerians by 2015.

Dogo-Mohammed , said the scheme has so far covered over 95 per cent of government employees under the Formal Sector Programme and over 1.6 million pregnant women and children under the age of five under the NHIS/MDGs Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Project in twelve states of the federation.
He added that NHIS recently launched the Community Based Social Health Insurance Programme, CBSHIP and the Voluntary Contributors Social Health Insurance Programme, VCSHIP, in Isanlu in Iyàgbà-East Local Government Area of Kogi State.