By Ephraim Oseji

HACEY has announced the launch of Project Agbebi’s 2026 community Maternal Health Outreach, a six-state maternal health intervention running from June 15 to July 24, 2026, supported by the Bank of Industry. Across Kaduna, Ogun, Anambra, Cross River, Taraba, and Kwara States, the project will train 100 healthcare workers, deliver safe birthing kits and maternal health education to 2,000 pregnant women, and establish 12 community-based support groups.

Nigeria accounts for roughly a quarter of all maternal deaths globally. With a Maternal Mortality Ratio reaching as high as 1,047 deaths per 100,000 live births in some regions, a Nigerian woman faces a lifetime risk of 1 in 19 of dying from a pregnancy-related cause. The barriers are well documented: undertrained health workers, financial constraints, delayed care-seeking, and the near-total absence of essential delivery supplies in underserved communities. These are not new problems. They are persistent ones, and a persistent response is exactly what it takes to address them.

Project Agbebi has been that persistent response for over a decade. Since its founding, the project has operated on a clear conviction: safe motherhood cannot be achieved through supply drops or single-point interventions. It requires a system built at the community level, one that combines trained health workers, educated mothers, essential materials, and peer support structures that outlast any individual project cycle. Each state visit delivers all four components, leaving behind not just kits and knowledge, but functional community support groups that sustain the work after HACEY moves on.

“Every woman who survives childbirth, every newborn who takes their first breath safely, every health worker who gains the skills to protect them: that is what Resilient Human Capital looks like in practice,” said Rhoda Robinson, Executive Director of HACEY. “With the support of the Bank of Industry, Project Agbebi continues to prove that maternal deaths are preventable. This is what happens when strategic partners invest in communities that have been left furthest behind.”

The 2026 programme will span six geopolitical zones, reaching communities across Nigeria’s north-west, south-west, south-east, south-south, north-east, and north-central regions. Upon completion, HACEY will publish a full impact report covering aggregate reach and outcomes, contributing to its evidence-based advocacy for maternal health policy at state and federal levels.