What the next WHO director-general must learn from Nigeria’s health reforms, By Chinedu Moghalu
By October 2026, the National Health Insurance Authority reported that 80,000 women had received emergency maternal care by August; insurance enrolment exceeded 23 million by September. The transferable lesson is a…
This is an opinion piece by Chinedu Moghalu examining Nigeria's recent health sector reforms as a potential case study for the incoming WHO leadership. The World Health Organisation, the UN agency responsible for coordinating global public health policy, international disease response, and health systems strengthening, will elect a new Director-General in 2027 to succeed the current leadership. The selection comes at a time when the agency faces scrutiny over funding constraints, its handling of past health emergencies, and renewed debate over how global health governance should support, rather than dictate to, national health systems in developing countries.
The article draws on data points such as the National Health Insurance Authority's reported figures on maternal care coverage and enrolment growth to argue that Nigeria's experience holds lessons for how the WHO's next leader should approach health financing, universal health coverage, and country-led reform models. Both Premium Times and BusinessDay carry the same syndicated opinion piece, with the coverage centring on the author's argument rather than new reporting; neither outlet adds independent reporting on WHO's selection process or verification of the cited health insurance figures beyond what the author presents.