Stakeholders Seek Alternative Funding For NTD Interventions

State governments have been urged to strengthen accountability in the implementation of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) programmes to ensure that budgetary commitments translate into actual interventions for affected communities.

The Head of NTD Monitoring and Evaluation, Mr Gambo Yakubu, said assessments of states’ performance revealed the need for stronger verification of funding reports, adequate budgetary allocations and timely releases.

He said the assessment examined states’ progress in implementing recommendations on funding, logistics, public awareness, case-finding, insurance coverage, data management, research and private sector engagement.

Yakubu stressed that making budgetary commitments was insufficient without the actual release of funds for implementation.

“Budget commitment is only the beginning, but most importantly is the releases,” he said.

He urged state commissioners for health to verify figures submitted by their governments to ensure that reported allocations and releases reflected actual implementation.

Yakubu also identified gaps in domestic production of NTD commodities, insurance inclusion and private sector participation, calling for stronger government action.

The Commissioner for Health and Human Services in Benue State, Dr Paul Ogwuche, said the changing donor financing landscape made increased domestic investment necessary to sustain NTD interventions.

He warned that affected communities could lose access to essential services if external funding declined, noting that international development partners remained the predominant financiers of many NTD programmes.

“The resources for our health services, we have discovered that, yes, government owns this programme, but our foreign donors seem to be more predominant or more prominent in the sponsorship of these programmes,” he said.

Ogwuche said governments needed to develop sustainable financing arrangements to maintain interventions and achieve the 2030 elimination targets.

He identified leprosy, lymphatic filariasis and snakebite among the conditions affecting communities in Benue, describing the state as one of Nigeria’s high-burden areas for snakebite.

Similarly, the Permanent Secretary, Yobe State Ministry of Health and Human Services, Hadiza Sambo, said the state was working to integrate NTD interventions into its planning and budgeting processes.

Sambo said Yobe was preparing its annual operational plan to ensure that identified interventions translated into specific budgetary commitments.

“We create a budget line that will speak for the NTDs,” she said.

She said the state would engage local government chairmen and other stakeholders to strengthen implementation at the grassroots, where many affected communities require interventions.

According to her, the response to NTDs required collaboration beyond the health sector, particularly with agencies responsible for water, sanitation and hygiene, education and local government administration.

She explained that integrating NTD interventions into existing programmes would promote coordinated action rather than treating them as stand-alone activities.

Neglected tropical diseases are a group of preventable and treatable diseases that affect more than 1.6 billion people globally, including over 600 million people in Africa.

They include schistosomiasis, onchocerciasis (river blindness), lymphatic filariasis, trachoma, leprosy and soil-transmitted helminthiases, among others.

The diseases can cause disability, disfigurement and death, while perpetuating poverty and undermining economic development, particularly in vulnerable and underserved communities.

Globally, 55 countries have eliminated at least one NTD, including 23 African countries.

A Deloitte study cited in the meeting indicated that Nigeria could gain about $19 billion in productivity benefits if it achieved its NTD elimination targets by 2030.