Federal Gov’t, EU Sign Agreements To Boost Local Manufacturing, Investment In Health Sector

The national government, successful collaboration with the European Union (EU) and ECOWAS, connected Thursday signed 3 landmark agreements towards strengthening section manufacturing and attracting concern crossed Nigeria’s pharmaceutical and wellness sectors.

The agreements, which are portion of the EU Global Gateway Manufacturing and Access to Vaccines, Medicines, and Health Technologies (MAV+) inaugural and SRHR flagships, volition enactment a caller procreation of section producers and innovators successful gathering a stronger and much resilient wellness ecosystem crossed Nigeria and West Africa.

The 3 agreements include: Enabling Local Manufacturing of Health, Immunisation and Nutrition Commodities successful Nigeria (ELM-N); Quality Uplift for Advancing Local Industry successful Medicine Standards (Qualimeds Nigeria); and Strengthening Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) successful West Africa.

Speaking astatine the Nigeria–EU Health Investment Forum held successful Abuja and jointly hosted by the EU Delegation to Nigeria and ECOWAS, the Presidential Initiative for Unlocking the Healthcare Value Chain (PVAC), and the National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development (NIPRD), Vice President Kashim Shettima reaffirmed the Federal Government’s committedness to gathering a sustainable, inclusive, and innovation-driven wellness economy.

Represented by his Senior Special Assistant connected Public Health, Dr Uju Rochas, the Vice President commended the agreements arsenic a continuation of President Bola Tinubu’s Executive Order promoting section accumulation of pharmaceuticals and aesculapian devices—a turning constituent for Nigeria’s healthcare sector.

“Through the Presidential Initiative for Unlocking the Healthcare Value Chain (PVAC) and complementary frameworks specified arsenic the Sector-Wide Approach (SWAp), this medication has taken factual steps to fortify wellness governance, stimulate investment, and beforehand section manufacturing,” helium stated.

Shettima reiterated the government’s resoluteness to foster an enabling situation for investors and innovators done unchangeable regulations, robust institutions, and effectual public–private partnerships.

“Our connection is clear: Nigeria is unfastened for wellness investment, innovation, and impact. The President has made it wide that Nigeria’s wellness translation volition not beryllium connected assistance and dependency unsocial but volition beryllium driven by section ownership, accountability, and innovation—Made successful Nigeria, for Nigerians, by Nigerians,” helium added.

Commending the EU, PVAC, NIPRD, and different partners for their committedness to advancing wellness security, exertion transfer, and industrialisation, helium described the signing arsenic “the opening of a caller section defined by shared prosperity, section innovation, and planetary collaboration.”

EU Ambassador to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Gautier Mignot, noted that the forum reflected Team Europe’s shared committedness to improving wellness outcomes done strategical investment.

“Together with our partners, the Nigerian government, the United Nations, the backstage sector, and the wider planetary community, we are committed to gathering resilient, efficient, and inclusive wellness and societal payment systems to guarantee prosperity for all,” Mignot said.

He highlighted the EU’s long-standing concern with Nigeria and ECOWAS successful advancing healthcare—from entree to services and large-scale immunisation to aesculapian research, household planning, and illness eradication—through some nationalist and multilateral initiatives.

“We proceed to enactment Nigeria done our Global Gateway initiatives, peculiarly successful reproductive, maternal, and kid health. We presently person a €45 cardinal task successful Nigeria and astir €25 cardinal crossed West Africa, co-funded with the Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and the Gates Foundation. Our extremity is to determination from assistance to peer-to-peer collaboration, from standalone projects to a dynamic concern strategy, and that’s the essence of our Global Gateway Investment Strategy,” Mignot explained.

In his remarks, the Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Senator Abubakar Bagudu, stated that the forum comes astatine a pivotal clip arsenic Nigeria expands partnerships, reforms its systems, and increases concern to marque healthcare much accessible and affordable.

“This is astir communal prosperity and shared gains. The absorptive capableness of Nigeria’s system is enormous, and the governmental determination to get it close is clear. President Tinubu has taken bold, indispensable reforms to acceptable our system connected the close path,” helium said.

Also speaking astatine the event, the Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Muhammadu Pate, was represented by Pharm Olubunmi Aribeana, who reiterated Nigeria’s committedness to ensuring that locally made wellness products s...