By Racheal Abujah
Abuja, Nov. 11, 2026 ——The Federal Government has formally opened the Sector-Wide Private Sector Exchange (SPX), a platform designed to connect private investors, businesses and innovators with investment opportunities across Nigeria’s health sector.
The initiative is expected to bridge the gap between government health priorities and private-sector capital, technology and innovation, while facilitating partnerships to address critical gaps in healthcare delivery.
Dr Muntaqa Umar Sadiq, National Coordinator for the Implementation of the Sector-Wide Approach (SWAp), formally opened the exchange on behalf of the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare at a stakeholder engagement in Abuja.
Sadiq said the platform would translate government health plans and state Annual Operational Plans (AOPs) into investment-ready opportunities for private companies, development finance institutions (DFIs), philanthropies and innovators.
He explained that the SPX would operate as a market-exchange layer sitting on top of the Sector-Wide Approach, providing a structured interface for businesses to identify opportunities, engage government and contribute to addressing health-system challenges.
According to him, the initiative is designed to move beyond fragmented donor funding and philanthropic grants towards unlocking the wider investment potential of Nigeria’s health sector.
He said the platform would operate through an Ask and Offer Compact, under which government would identify specific health challenges and investment needs, while private-sector organisations, DFIs and innovators would respond with corresponding offers of capital, technology and service-delivery solutions.
“The public sector makes clear asks from each reform cycle, the problem we need to solve, and the private sector, DFIs and innovators make corresponding offers of capital, technology and delivery,” he said.
He explained that the proposed exchange would give investors clearer information on where resources were needed, what opportunities existed, and how their investments could support national and state health priorities.
He identified some of the proposed components as an analytics engine to examine AOPs and fiscal data, a State Investment Readiness Index to assess states’ preparedness for private-sector partnerships, investment signal cards and a fiscal space map to identify funding gaps.
The platform would also establish deal rooms to facilitate direct engagement between government, investors and innovators.
He stressed that government would retain full responsibility for policy direction, standards, guidelines and procurement authority, adding that the exchange would not replace existing laws or regulatory institutions.
He said SPX 1.0 was designed through collaboration involving Public Health Capital, an initiative of LoftyInc, the SWAp Coordination Office, state governments and development partners.
He invited ministries, state agencies, entrepreneurs, non-governmental organisations and development partners to contribute data, pilot projects, technical expertise and catalytic funding to strengthen the platform.
Maternal health, vaccine delivery, health insurance and supply-chain development were identified as some of the areas where the concept could be tested.
Earlier, Dr Ashiru Adamu Abubakar, Technical Assistant to the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare on Sector-Wide Approach, said Nigeria’s health-sector challenges extended beyond inadequate funding to include weak governance, inefficient resource utilisation and fragmentation of interventions.
Abubakar said a diagnostic assessment conducted about three years earlier identified weaknesses in health financing, institutional functionality, infrastructure, primary healthcare delivery, pharmaceutical supply chains and health insurance coverage.
He said only about one-fifth of the country’s primary healthcare facilities met minimum functionality standards at the time of the assessment.
According to him, weaknesses in medicine distribution channels also contributed to higher costs and created opportunities for fake and counterfeit products.
He explained that the Nigeria Health Sector Renewal Investment Initiative (NHSRII) was therefore designed not merely as a technical intervention but as a governance reform to bring together different actors in the health system.
He said the Health Sector Renewal Compact, signed in 2023, brought together federal, state and local governments, traditional and religious leaders, private-sector organisations, civil society and development partners behind a common health-sector vision.
He said the Sector-Wide Approach was anchored on coordinated planning, budgeting, reporting and stakeholder engagement to reduce fragmentation and improve resource utilisation.
He recalled that in June 2024, only about one-third of states had clear annual operational plans outlining their health priorities and proposed interventions.
He, however, said all states had subsequently developed annual operational plans, with the achievement sustained for three consecutive years.
According to him, the plans provide a common framework for governments and development partners to identify priorities, coordinate investments and monitor implementation.
He further disclosed that assessments had been conducted across all 774 Local Government Areas to identify facilities requiring improvements to meet Comprehensive Emergency Obstetric and Newborn Care (CEmONC) standards.
He said the findings had been shared with state governments to guide facility revitalisation and address gaps affecting maternal and newborn healthcare.
Providing details of how the exchange would work, Dr Lawal Bakare, Communication and Innovation Lead, Sector-Wide Approach (SWAp), Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, said private-sector engagement must go beyond providing information about government programmes.
Bakare said the critical issue was establishing a practical interface that would make it easier for businesses and investors to interact directly with government and identify opportunities.
He explained that Nigeria’s health-sector reform blueprint was organised around four major pillars: governance, service delivery, healthcare industrialisation and health security.
He said digitisation, health financing and human resources for health were important enablers cutting across the four pillars.
According to him, each pillar offered opportunities for private-sector participation, particularly in areas where government might not be able to accelerate implementation on its own.
He cited digitisation and technology as important opportunities for improving medicine regulation, product traceability and consumer protection.
Using the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) as an example, he said technology could strengthen product monitoring and enable consumers to identify and report potentially harmful products.
He argued that relying solely on complaint centres would not adequately address the problem of counterfeit and substandard products, stressing that technology and private-sector innovation could support oversight at scale.
He said SPX would also help classify investment opportunities according to the level and nature of private-sector participation required.
He explained that the opportunities would be organised into three broad categories: catalytic, opportunity and moonshot zones.
The catalytic zone, represented by black in the presentation, covers areas where government already has budgetary allocations and procurement plans.
He said businesses could compete for procurement opportunities in these areas, while startups with innovative digital health solutions and medical equipment could be supported to collaborate with established companies that have the institutional capacity to execute large contracts.
He explained that such partnerships would enable smaller innovators to contribute their expertise without necessarily having to compete independently for large government contracts.
The opportunity zone, represented by green, covers areas where private companies could co-invest with government to address identified funding and service-delivery gaps.
He cited the development of Comprehensive Emergency Obstetric and Newborn Care facilities, oxygen infrastructure, supply-chain strengthening, quality healthcare services and primary healthcare prevention as examples.
He said government could not finance or implement every intervention alone, making partnerships with private investors and development organisations important.
The moonshot zone, represented by white, covers innovative initiatives that could expand the capacity of the public health system but might not ordinarily feature in government investment plans.
He cited robotic surgery and other advanced healthcare technologies as examples of innovations that private investors could introduce into the Nigerian market, potentially attracting government support.
He said the classification would help investors understand where government was already committing resources, where co-investment was required and where innovations could create additional opportunities.
He said SPX would provide three major support mechanisms: intelligence products, marketplace services and deal infrastructure.
He explained that the intelligence products would use health-sector data, government plans and historical spending patterns to make investment decisions easier and improve the business environment.
The marketplace component would help businesses align their products and innovations with government reform priorities and understand how to position themselves for available opportunities.
He said some innovative businesses were developing solutions without adequately considering the direction of government reforms, adding that SPX would help them adapt their offerings to identified market needs.
The deal infrastructure would include portfolio clinics for states, deal clinics and investment deal rooms to connect state governments, innovators and potential investors.
He explained that an innovator with a promising healthcare solution but insufficient capital could be connected with an investor who had the resources but needed a credible solution.
He cited the possibility of facilitating partnerships for locally manufactured ambulances and other medical equipment as examples of opportunities the platform could support.
He also proposed quarterly stakeholder engagements focusing on oxygen, testing and diagnostics, maternal and newborn health, neglected tropical diseases, and consumer behaviour.
He said such engagements would help identify market demand and build investment cases around specific health needs.
Using cancer diagnostics as an example, he questioned whether Nigeria could project the number of women likely to require mammography over the next 20 years and use the findings to attract investment in diagnostic services.
He emphasised that SPX was not intended to be another conference or conventional government public-private partnership desk that waited for investors to approach it.
Rather, he said, the government intended to become more proactive in identifying innovations, connecting businesses with opportunities and facilitating partnerships.
He invited private-sector organisations to engage with the exchange, saying its office was located at No. 7 Usuma Street, Maitama, Abuja.
Meanwhile, Sadiq said the proposed exchange was being introduced alongside broader improvements in health-sector coordination, planning, accountability and resource mobilisation.
He cited approximately 1.5 billion dollars in results-linked financing arrangements and a nearly five-billion-dollar health partnership between Nigeria and the United States as examples of resources supporting the reform agenda.
He said the Nigeria-US partnership involved approximately three billion dollars from Nigeria and two billion dollars from the United States.
He also highlighted the Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF) as an important mechanism for supporting primary healthcare delivery.
The officials maintained that the success of the reforms would depend on effective collaboration among government institutions, private investors, development partners, civil society and healthcare providers.
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It will be recalled that the Nigeria Health Sector Renewal Investment Initiative was launched in December 2023 to strengthen health-sector governance, improve financing, expand access to essential services and advance Universal Health Coverage.
The Sector-Wide Approach provides a coordination framework for aligning government and development-partner resources behind common national and state health priorities, with increased participation from the private sector and other stakeholders.
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