It will be recalled that the NI-ABAE itiative had last month signed a similar pact with the Government of Nigeria through the Ministry of Budget and National Planning where it was agreed that NI-ABAE Initiative among other things will support routine immunization system by engaging in conditional cash transfer, social mobilization and defaulter tracking to raise demand for immunization in primary health care facilities.
The MoU with the FMOH, is for a period of 2 years and is expected to elapse in 2021. Under the new arrangement, the Federal Ministry of Health and NI-ABAE Initiative will collaborate and work together to achieve greater accountability and ensure greater coordination of NGOs registered with the ministry, support NI-ABAE Initiative programme and potential scale-up in 2020 dependent on study outcome and share information on cash monitoring procedures, data and results.
The agreement also stipulates that the parties shall encourage the exchange of information and develop cooperation in many areas which includes relevant knowledge and data sharing between the ministry and NI-ABAE Initiative; support to NI_ABAE initiative to map NGOs working in the health sector in Nigeria; and support to host national review meetings on health based NGO governance.
NI-ABAE Initiative had gone ahead to support the review meeting even before the signing of the MoU and recently donated office items to strengthen the setup of the NGO technical working group. Both parties also agreed to develop cooperation in the support of monitoring of NI-ABAE Initiative conditional cash transfer program at implementation locations by the FMOH team as well as the support at no financial or staff cost for NI-ABAE Initiatives such as written recommendations to relevant government and non-governmental organisations.
NI-ABAE Initiative CCT program gives mothers of eligible infants that receive routine immunization the sum of N500 for the first four mandatory immunization visits and N2,000 for the last visit. Nearly 500,000 cash transfers has been disbursed to the caregivers of over 100,000 enrolled infants eligible for routine immunization in their intervention clinics worth over N350,000,000 since the commencement of the program in 2017.
The cash transfer compensates for transport, loss of trading income and waiting time. NI-ABAE Initiative said it will continue to raise demand for routine immunization through innovative means like the CCT.
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