The private sector has been identified as a very important factor which could assist Nigeria in bridging the gap in achieving universal access to HIV/AIDS services by 2015. This was stressed in a session sponsored by CHEVRON Nigeria with the theme “Private Sector Health Investment, Leveraging Resources for Sustainable Health Care” held at the Crystal Hall of Chelsea Hotel on Monday May 3rd from 2.30pm to 4.00pm. The Round Table session was chaired by the Director General of NACA Prof. John Idoko who remarked in his opening speech that the dwindling donor funding meant that Nigeria must begin to look inwards for more sustainable resource generation for HIV/AIDS activities. The Director General said that the private sector is a huge window of opportunity which is still largely untapped. He acknowledged the several private health investments being carried out by private organisations but urged them to improve linkages and collaborate closely with the public sector.

The Round Table session was part of the 5th National AIDS Conference on HIV/AIDS in Nigeria organized by the Network for AIDS Research in Nigeria (NARN) held at the International Conference Centre Abuja and came to an end on Wednesday 5th May 2010 with an overwhelming call for the need to look inwards for more resource generation and more attention for prevention and research activities especially at the grass root level. About 4000 participants from Nigeria, other African countries and abroad including policy makers, politicians, scientist, donor agencies, and implementing organisations were in attendance.

There were four rich presentations during the Round Table session. Dr. Chinwe Okala extolled the benefits of the “HIV, Malaria, TB Private Sector Health Investment Models – The CHEVRON Experience.” She mentioned that in Chevron, a collaborative HIV, TB, and Malaria programme was instituted to first of all ensure all staff are free from these infections and later the programme was extended to surrounding communities through the “hub and spoke investment model.” The programme had a goal of zero new infections and the approach was to build the capacity of the management staff, management committee team, and the managing director to ensure effective peer health education and monitoring and evaluation framework. The programme according to her has been extended to the communities and Small- and Medium-scale Entrepreneurs (SMEs) are being empowered with information to become peer educators to their colleagues. The programme is expected to have a snowballing effect and eventually feedback information into overall programme management.  

Dr. Emmanuel Alhassan who is the Head of Public Private Partnership (PPP) in NACA brought out the salient ingredients necessary for sustainable PPP investments in his presentation titled “Public Partnership Investments for Health.” He explained the key elements which could influence PPP goals including roles, responsibilities, risks, and rewards. He reviewed the National Public Private Partnership Policy in Health (2005) and the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (2005). According to him, the requirements for successful partnerships border on three key principles including equity, transparency and mutual benefits.


The Secretary and Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Business Coalition Against AIDS (NiBUCAA) Mr. Olushina Olufana spoke on “Leveraging Resources with the Private Sector for Health care” emphasizing the importance of NiBUCAA in leveraging resources from the private sector to achieve a unified, organized, and a robust access to health care services.  He mentioned that there is a growing acceptance that the private sector has a role to play in bridging the gap in health care and that the beginning of effective community engagement begins with a successful collaboration of PPP projects with the communities and civil society organisations (CSOs). According to him, the way forward is to first acknowledge private sector contributions in health, adopt market driven strategies, continue to encourage members, support SMEs/Supply chain organisations, and establish more visible partnerships.

Mr. Sunday Okegbemiro talked about “Building Sustainable Partnerships for Health Investment” saying private organisations should look at public-private partnerships as investments. He advocated that the notion of “Corporate Social Responsibility” should be replaced with “Corporate Social Investment” since this would positively broaden the scope and context within which most organisations look at projects that give back to society.