TOYIN SARAKI WELCOMES GLOBAL COMMITMENTS FROM DAVOS AND THE AFRICAN
UNION SUMMIT; AFFIRMS PRIMARY HEALTHCARE, IMMUNISATION AS SMART
NECESSARY INVESTMENTS

Thursday 2 February, WBFA Global Office, London, UK

Toyin Saraki, the Founder-President of the Wellbeing Foundation Africa
has welcomed the African Union's launch of two significant health
commitments at this year's African Union Summit as smart and necessary
investments towards universal health. The Union pledged to create " an
agency to tackle global threats such as Ebola, and to make immunisation
available throughout the continent by 2020".

In her opinion editorial for Reuters , Mrs. Saraki, an Inaugural Fellow
of the newly launched West African Academy of Public Health, and Chair
of Nigeria's Primary Healthcare Revitalisation Support Group, reflecting
on the key pronouncements emerging from global and regional leaders at
the just concluded Davos Meetings and the AU Summit, declared:

"As Chair of the Nigeria's Primary Healthcare Revitalisation Support
Group, I believe that primary healthcare investment, both from the
private and public sector, is key to ensuring universal healthcare for
all Nigerians."

"At the World Economic Forum (WEF) last week, healthcare leaders discussed the
'Hospital of the Future', and the panelist Dr.Elizabeth Nabel noted
that: "We would like to take healthcare delivery systems as much into
the homes and into the communities as possible because we believe we
can deliver better care at lower costs. If you believe in value-based
healthcare, the definition being patient measured outcomes defined by
cost. We believe that outcomes will be better delivered in the homes and
communities rather than hospitals. " "

Following WEF and the AU Summit Mrs. Saraki noted: "From a social investment perspective it is also a huge opportunity to
see a social impact return on money invested. The nature of primary
healthcare - the ability to monitor and manage delivery of, for example,
the Wellbeing Foundation Africa's Mamacare antenatal and postnatal
health access through birth preparedness classes, or by the USAID-funded
MPowering Healthworkers Program which engaged mobile-technologies in
training midwives in Ondo State of Nigeria- means that money invested
in, can be quantified by results gained. For innovative social impact
investors, there is an opportunity here for collaboration between both
the central and state level governments in Nigeria to fund real change."

Mrs. Saraki continued "The imperative of fulfilling rights-based social contracts with
citizens should rightly be fulfilled at the most accessible, visible and
tangible levels, for the battle to deliver good health and a great
education will be won (or lost) at the strata of primary healthcare and
early childhood development through primary education."

"By changing course and delivering on existing domestic and
international commitments to invest in health, education, and fight
corruption, the Government of Nigeria has the opportunity to save
millions of lives, leverage on in-country, regional and global support
for health, and build a more productive, prosperous and secure Nigeria. ended Mrs. Saraki"


To read Toyin Saraki's full article here:
http://news.trust.org/item/20170202221551-hjdlu/

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