Abuja: Malaria Consortium and eGov Foundation are intensifying their collaboration to enhance digital solutions in Nigeria’s health sector, focusing on improving data accuracy, supply chain tracking, and community-level healthcare delivery. This was announced by Malaria Consortium’s West and Central Africa Programme Director, Dr. Kolade Maxwell, during a visit by eGov Foundation’s Global Chief Executive Officer, Santhosh Nagaraj.
According to News Agency of Nigeria, this visit presented an opportunity to explore deeper collaboration on health service delivery across Nigeria and other African countries through innovative digital public infrastructure solutions. Dr. Maxwell highlighted how digital platforms are increasingly vital in improving the planning, implementation, and monitoring of large-scale health interventions, particularly malaria prevention and child survival programs.
Dr. Maxwell noted that the digital platform has supported health interventions for over 20 million children across 14 Nigerian states during activities conducted in 2025. He further stated that the campaign is set to expand in 2026. The partnership is also looking to extend beyond Nigeria into C´te d’Ivoire, Chad, Togo, Burkina Faso, and Mozambique.
Maxwell emphasized the growing recognition by governments of digital tools’ value in addressing complex development challenges across sectors like health and agriculture. He cited ongoing discussions with the Kebbi State Government on using technology to support rice farmers while mitigating malaria risks associated with expanding irrigation activities. The government is interested in using digital solutions to identify farmers, manage agricultural inputs, map mosquito breeding sites, and deploy larvicides efficiently.
Dr. Maxwell explained that digitization would enhance program management, reduce operational inefficiencies, and provide governments with reliable data for timely, evidence-based decision-making. He outlined the DIGIT platform’s capabilities, including household registration, beneficiary tracking, commodity distribution management, supervision, monitoring and evaluation, and real-time reporting and accountability mechanisms.
eGov Foundation’s CEO, Santhosh Nagaraj, highlighted digital technology’s role in creating transparency throughout the service delivery chain. The platform ensures accountability by recording the delivery details of commodities like bed nets, strengthening resource allocation to intended beneficiaries.
Nagaraj shared that the platform’s functionality enables tracking individual commodities and verifying distribution records during monitoring exercises. In countries like Chad and Burundi, this has linked each bed net to a specific household, creating a verifiable record and increasing confidence in program implementation.
He also noted the platform’s ability to track beneficiaries over time, especially during Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention campaigns, ensuring children receive all required doses, thereby improving program effectiveness and health outcomes.
Nagaraj concluded that a long-term common digital platform could significantly reduce operational costs by lowering training requirements and improving efficiency as programs expand. As health workers become familiar with the system, the tool becomes more intuitive, facilitating easier program scaling.