Dr Emeka Kanebi (Lead writer)
The time to act is now. Nigeria can no longer afford to let healthcare aspirations remain mere rhetoric. Transformative results must follow bold intentions. This urgency was unmistakable at the World Health Expo (WHX) Leaders Africa, held on 9–10 December 2025 in Accra, Ghana, under the theme “Catalysing Africa’s Health Revolution through Investment, Innovation, Impact and Infrastructure.” Building on the inaugural edition in Kigali, Rwanda, this second summit aimed to move beyond dialogue to measurable action, forging transformative partnerships, and accelerating progress toward the African Health Security and Sovereignty Agenda.
Nigeria in the next 25 years
The United Nations estimates that Africa will be home to 2.5 billion people by 2050, with Nigeria, the continent’s most populous nation, among eight countries driving more than half of global population growth. This surge is fuelled by declining infant mortality, rising life expectancy, and a gradual decline in fertility rates.
As Ghana’s Minister of Health, Hon. Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, noted at the WHX Leaders Africa Summit, “This demographic force is not a burden, but a powerful competitive advantage that must be matched with bold reforms and strategic investment.” Nigeria is approaching a demographic window that will reward investment in health and education. With an expanding youthful population, as the demographic transition accelerates, the next 25 years hold unprecedented potential, provided bold policies and investments in human capital turn demographic promise into tangible prosperity.
Nigeria’s uneven demographic transition
Evidence from the 2023 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) shows modest improvements since 2023. Infant mortality has declined from 100 to 63 deaths per 1,000 live births, under-5 mortality from 201 to 110 per 1,000, and average number of children per woman has dropped from six to about five. Life expectancy at birth has risen from 54.1 years in 2000 to 63.4 years in 2021. Yet, these gains are uneven, masking stark disparities across geopolitical zones and between rural and urban populations, leaving Nigeria’s demographic dividend unstable. Nigeria Health Watch highlighted in 2022 that Nigeria remains in a pre-dividend stage, on the cusp of its demographic window of opportunity. Without deliberate policy action and investment in health, education, and human capital, the potential of Nigeria’s growing population risks slipping into a demographic challenge rather than becoming a transformative dividend.
The role of the private sector in making health investable
The World Health Organization (WHO) emphasises that health is an investment, not a cost. Nigeria’s Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) support policy note reinforces this, highlighting that improving population health and increasing health sector investment are critical to unlocking the country’s demographic dividend. Achieving this, however, requires an active private sector. At the WHX Leaders Africa Summit, participants issued a clear call for structured partnerships between government and private actors to advance universal health coverage. Nigeria should be strategic in creating an enabling environment that stimulates private investment across the health sector. This means strengthening and enforcing clear regulations, using NHIA purchasing to reward quality and value, modernising public-private partnership frameworks, and offering targeted incentives for local manufacturing of medicines and medical devices. As Dr. Mories Atoki, CEO of the African Business Coalition for Health (ABC Health), noted, the evolving health funding landscape in Africa and Nigeria demands a shift. Private and multi-sector actors are poised to reduce the reliance on foreign aid as the primary engine for sustainable health financing.
Nigeria’s opportunity to lead on health industrial policy
Nigeria’s healthcare sector must be framed as an investable market with clear pathways to scale and returns. That requires predictable purchasing, strong regulation, transparent reimbursement, practical de-risking instruments, and demand certainty so investors can plan, build, and grow with confidence. The Presidential Initiative for Unlocking the Healthcare Value Chain (PVAC) signals this shift, using targeted government action to crowd in private capital, strengthen coordination, and accelerate value-chain transformation across pharmaceuticals, medical devices, diagnostics, and vaccines.
However, to achieve true scale, Nigeria cannot act alone. Deeper continental alignment through pooled procurement, harmonised regulation, and joint manufacturing standards is required to aggregate markets, reduce risk, and deliver sustainable, inclusive healthcare solutions that attract long-term investment. This requires clearer procurement signals, faster regulatory pathways, and credible off-take commitments.
Africa cannot afford fragmented manufacturing efforts; strategic coordination on regional product specialisation is essential to building a viable and competitive health manufacturing ecosystem. As Nigeria expands local manufacturing, production alone will not guarantee impact. By aggregating demand for health commodities with other African countries, Nigeria can present a single, compelling “big basket” to the private sector, one that de-risks investment and achieves scale.
Nevertheless, manufacturing cannot stand without people. Nigeria must invest in workforce planning and build a steady pipeline of biomedical engineers, pharmacists, lab scientists, and regulatory professionals to run plants, assure quality, and scale production safely. As Dr. Kevin Massoudi, Vice President and Head of Public Sector Engagement, Middle East, and Africa at Siemens Healthineers, aptly noted, “A qualified human capital is a human potential.” Nigeria must invest its own resources to strengthen its healthcare system prioritising human capital development and establishing a clear sustainability pathway anchored in domestic resource mobilization. Technology and data can help Nigeria move from buying supplies after shortages happen to forecasting demand early, so locally made health products arrive when and where they are needed, in the right quantities.
What this means for Nigeria
In Nigeria, ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), development partners, and the private sector face an opportunity to move beyond fragmented efforts to more coordinated delivery. Greater clarity around a time-bound investment and health workforce plan, aligned with PVAC and UHC priorities and accompanied by defined responsibilities, budgets, and regular public reporting could help translate commitments into measurable progress. Effective use of partnerships will be critical to converting policy intentions into improvements that are felt most strongly in communities where needs are most urgent.
With the recent signing of the MoU between Nigeria and the United States Government, new financing over the next five years creates space to advance the WHX Leaders’ Summit agenda, particularly through stronger private sector engagement, local manufacturing, and investment aligned with national health priorities.
The WHX Leaders’ Summit reinforced the broader point that Africa’s health outcomes will be shaped by how priorities are set, resources aligned, and progress tracked. Leadership and accountability remain central to turning ambition into sustained health system gains.