Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation Has Invested $1 Billion In Nigeria – Bill Gates

The Co-Chair of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill Gates has revealed that his Foundation has invested more than one billion dollars in Nigeria’s healthcare system.

The richest man in the world said this when he led a delegation from the foundation to meet with the Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun, on vaccines financing programme in Nigeria.

Gates said that the Foundation was also in discussion with the Nigerian Minister of Health, to support local production of vaccines.

“Our Foundation has invested over one billion dollars in Nigeria, mostly in health and we are very committed to global development.

“We want to discuss vaccine financing and the issue of how we can be effective as partners for the health resources to grow over time.’’ He said.

The Minister of Finance Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, who showed her gratitude to Mr Gates on his support of the Nigerian Health system, said that the government had inaugurated the campaign to improve tax collection so as to boost its domestic resources and reduce its over dependence on donour agencies.

“As government, we are very committee to solving our health care challenges. We feel that there is enough potential revenue and actual revenue in this country to fund these priorities and they must be funded.

“We are committed to that, from domestic mobilisation perspective because we have the lowest tax to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio in the world and we are doing something about it.

“We are trying to get more people involved in tax payment so that we can fund basic health care.

“There is no way around it because no matter how much support we get from donours, we must have structures to be able to meet these basic obligations,’’ she said.

According to the News Agency of Nigeria, Adeosun said that the government was also looking into local production of vaccines to create jobs and also save foreign exchange.

She said one of the problems of the government in terms of improving healthcare was not necessarily money, but rather accurate data to know exactly where that money would make the most impact.

Adeosun said that improving financial inclusion would translate to improved data collection on access to health as well as improve primary healthcare service in the country.

Meanwhile, Naija News reported that Bill Gates and Aliko Dangote have signed a MoU with six governors of states in Northern Nigeria on extension of Immunization.