By Samuel Oyejola
To ensure that Nigeria is effectively covered in the Universal health coverage, there is need for the government and development partners to collaborate with the private sector.
Imal Sylva, the Principal Partner of Imal Sylva and Partners, a management consulting firm, told Time Nigeria Magazine at the sideline of the workshop on the use of Evidence for Health planning organised by EpiAfric and the World Bank to improve on generating and using Impact Evaluation for effective policy formulation and implementation.
He said that the private sector would be instrumental in the implementation of government health policies. “Use known and tested operators that can implement. Get them involved to implement these policies. Even if it is from the private sector give them some level of recognition that they need so that they can be part of the implementation process.”
Sylva observed that there is a lot of disconnect between the private sector, development partners and the government adding that it is important to have a robust dialogue with practitioners in the private sector.
While pointing out that the privates sector is full of resources both in human and capital, he said that private sector operators are strong on implementation.
“We may not have been doing too much research, data gathering but the little we have we want to make sure that it works because we need to pay back our loans and make profits for our investors.”
He stated further that there is need for the private sector to work with the NGOs and the research bases in the application of available data.
While advising development partners and NGOs to look for better ways of implementation especially with the use of technology, he said, “You can get a lot of real data from us private sectors that are out there. If you wait for the normal bureaucratic channels you may not be able to get real time data unless you connect with the private sector.
While observing that there is a lot of disconnect between the private sector and the nonprofit sector, he advised that the private operators in the health sector should be more involved in policy formulation and implementation.
“It is important to have opportunity for us to be invited to be more involve and throw out the opportunity for us to be able to contribute to give feedback to them. The decision at the policy level should be based on feedback at the grassroots level.”
Also speaking to our correspondent, Edwin Ikhuoria of the Development Impact Evaluation (DIME) of the World Bank noted that there is a lot of disconnect between available evidence and policy making process.
He advised stakeholders involved in the formulation and implementation of policies that are research relevant.
While explaining at the workshop how DIME impact evaluation influences health policies he revealed that the SURE-P of the federal government saw to the deployment of 2000 midwives all across the country and the upgrade of 500 Primary Health Centers.
