GOODWILL MESSAGE:

Good Afternoon Honourable Ministers; Esteemed dignitaries; Ladies and Gentlemen; and all the women who are agents of change in health attending this anticipated launch in-person and virtually!

My name is Toyin Saraki and I am the Founder-President of the Wellbeing Foundation Africa, and the Inaugural Global Health Ambassador for the WHO Foundation, a longtime supporter and collaborator of Women in Global Health, with a committed purpose in transforming healthcare in Africa and a particular focus on maternal health and championing midwifery.

My Wellbeing Foundation Africa and I, are delighted to join you all today, as we re-image the role of the Nigerian woman in the health workforce, and aim to achieve gender parity in global health leadership through bringing all genders and backgrounds together to improve global health through Global Transformative Leadership.

As we officially launch Women in Global Health Nigeria today, after its establishment in 2020, I would like to reiterate the importance of ensuring Nigerian women are visible and recognised, while being empowered to shape global health programming, policy and advocacy in communities in Nigeria and the diaspora.

Globally, women are vital members of the health workforce, and with their male counterparts, they fully contribute to improving health outcomes for all communities around the world. Yet, while they play a significant role and make up more than 70% of the health workforce, they occupy less than 25% of senior decision-making positions and are generally in lower paying positions. In the African region, women account for 28% of physicians and averagely about 65% of nurses. In fact, the frontliners in healthcare are mostly women.

Gender inequality in health stems from inequalities in other areas; education, access to capital, political representation, early and discriminatory marriage practices among other social determinants. In the African region, the healthcare workforce closely mirrors the background role of a woman in the community; as the domestic caregiver and nurturer.

Systematic barriers such as the choice of family over career, or training opportunities that involves travel and safety considerations, often discourage women to follow career advancement choices, and if this continues, Nigerian women will not be able influence sector-led improvements to the industry in which they work as the life-potential of many Nigerian woman is affected strongly by reproductive and familial factors, which follow her throughout her life course.

The community health worker is the true definition of the frontline health worker as they are the most often contacted cadre of the health workforce. Composed of mostly women, the community health worker delivers health care work across the important aspects of health indicators such as maternal and child health, immunisations, breastfeeding education and support, infectious diseases like malaria, HIV and TB prevention. Yet their proper recognition and remuneration within the health system is under emphasised, especially as maternal and child health care is arguably the most accessed part of the PHC system, and in Nigeria is most often delivered by a female workforce.

My many decades-long work through the Wellbeing Foundation Africa has focused on achieving measurable results in engendering safer births for mothers and their newborns to survive and thrive through critical thinking, key evidence-based and real solutions, and an in-depth data driven understanding that improves prospects of women, their children, and their communities, alongside strengthening our female healthcare workers and the systems they work within.

Through our flagship Mamacare360 Community Midwifery Antenatal and Postnatal Education Programme, the Wellbeing Foundation Africa is working to improve maternal health by promoting Respectful Maternity Care for all women during pregnancy, childbirth, and in the time after birth. We believe that empowering midwifery is a vital solution to the challenges of providing high-quality maternal and newborn care for all women and newborn infants in all countries. It is also an effective means to promote the health and wellbeing of women of childbearing age, as well as their newborns and families, with a potentially rapid and sustained effect on population health outcomes.

It is said that unlike other sectors, healthcare does not have a “woman problem,” rather, it has a “women in leadership” problem. The prolonged lack of investment and systemic issues in Nigeria have compounded its vulnerabilities. Female health workers are concentrated in low status, low paying and unpaid roles while facing a constant threat of gender bias and harassment. The barriers that female health workers face undermine efforts to realise gender equality as well.

To increase the number of women in positions of leadership in healthcare, we must build a progressive pipeline of confident girls, and support systems to remunerate healthcare workers properly, and build resilient and targeted healthcare systems in Nigeria.

Through our efforts today towards inclusivity of all genders from all career stages and levels within the healthcare space regardless of tribe, religion, age, and socioeconomic status, we can achieve gender transformative leadership which builds an effective, inclusive, and supportive network for Nigerian-based and women of Nigerian origin, working in global health.

By increasing the gender parity ratio until there is equal representation of men and women in health leadership positions in UN agencies, national health governance, academia, STEM, health entrepreneurship, law, and other health-related fields in Nigeria,  establishing partnerships with multilateral sectoral organisations that support the gender intersection and inclusion agenda, influencing national policy that will improve access to a skilled health workforce for women, the gender pay-gap and maternal and child health, while empowering and inspiring young girls to contribute to the Nigerian health sector and providing them with the necessary mentorship to seek future leadership opportunities, we can positively change the course of women in health, women health outcomes and achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

My Wellbeing Foundation Africa and I look forward to working with Women in Global Health Nigeria and Pathfinder Nigeria, to develop a strategic roadmap forward for women engendering in health leadership, while engaging with other UN agencies and international organisations working in health in Nigeria to commit to gender parity being an integral part of their organisational structure and memory. Thank you!