Gates To Meet Tinubu, Discuss Nigeria’s Healthcare Reforms

Microsoft co-founder and chair of the Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, will meet President Bola Tinubu this week to discuss ways to improve Nigeria’s primary healthcare system.

He will also engage with federal and state leaders during his planned visit to discuss reforms in the nation’s primary healthcare.

A statement from the Gates Foundation, which announced this, said Gates would also participate in a Goalkeepers Nigeria event focused on Africa’s innovation future and meet with local scientists and partners shaping Nigeria’s national strategy on artificial intelligence and scaling up Health solutions.

The statement quoted Gates as saying that the siting of offices for the Foundation in South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, and Senegal, in addition to the first African office in Ethiopia about 13 years ago, was a great way to strengthen partnerships.

It said that Gates would visit Nigeria from Ethiopia, where he met with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and heard how Ethiopia was sustaining the momentum on critical reforms, expanding essential services, and remaining resilient amid shifting global aid dynamics.

“Gates also took part in a roundtable with the Ethiopian Public Health Institute on the country’s iodine-folic acid double-fortified salt initiative.

“From Addis Ababa, Gates will travel to Nigeria, where he will meet with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and engage with federal and state leaders to discuss Nigeria’s primary Health care reforms.

“He will also participate in a Goalkeepers Nigeria event focused on Africa’s innovation future and meet with local scientists and partners shaping Nigeria’s national AI strategy and scaling up Health solutions,” the statement added.

Gate’s trip follows the foundation’s historic announcement on May 8 that it would spend $200 billion over the next 20 years to advance progress on saving and improving lives and his commitment to giving away “virtually all of his wealth” to the foundation in that timeframe.

The statement added, “Over the next two decades, the foundation will work together with its partners to make as much progress as possible towards three primary goals: end preventable deaths of moms and babies; ensure the next generation grows up without having to suffer from deadly infectious diseases; and lift millions of people out of poverty, putting them on a path to prosperity. At the end of 20 years, the foundation will sunset its operations.

“Over the last two decades, the Gates Foundation has worked alongside African partners to save lives, develop vaccines, and strengthen systems. It has helped catalyse more than 100 innovations and contributed to saving more than 80 million lives through Gavi and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria.”