Sub-Saharan Africa and other regions in the world are experiencing significant changes: epidemiological shifts in disease spectrum; new emerging pathogens like noroviruses, Ebola, and COVID-19; socioeconomic uncertainty; massive population growth; and climate change impact.  To adapt to these changes, we need targeted, evidence-based, and innovative responses.

AFRIDA works across Sub-Saharan Africa with governments, the private sector, and both formal and informal community groups to promote resilience in the face of change for the region’s most vulnerable populations. Our programs target women, children, and the marginalized and hard-to-reach communities, and our toolbox includes a multitude of approaches: from AI-driven technology solutions to in-person grassroots education; from evidence-based health programs to the deployment of innovative clean energy interventions; from community empowerment activities to income-generating opportunities.

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Who we are

Our Organization

AFRIDA was founded in 2005 by a diverse group of experienced health and environmental experts with a combined service of 120 years in government and community structures. It is a Non-Governmental Organization registered in Nigeria to provide innovative solutions to health, environmental and developmental challenges to save lives and improve the quality of life in Nigeria and other ECOWAS Countries.

AFRIDA collaborates with governments at different levels – Local, State and Federal – and works through formal and non-formal community groups to deliver its health and environmental programs.  We work in remote and hard-to-reach places and conflict areas, especially the North East, North West, and Niger Delta regions of Nigeria, which face a myriad of challenges in healthcare, human capacity development and environmental issues.

AFRIDA also teams up with various private sector stakeholders to deliver its services, both as a means of sustainability and in order to reach the 60% of Nigerians who get healthcare from the Private Sector. 

Mission

To save lives through innovative solutions for improved healthcare management systems in response to the emerging nexus between health and the environment in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Vision

To support effective healthcare delivery ecosystem in Sub-Saharan Africa that is adapted to the changing economic, health and climate changes impact.

Our Values

Passion: We are passionate about saving lives and improving the quality of life of marginalized and vulnerable communities.

Collaboration: We work with governments at different levels -local, state, and federal, private sector and through formal and non-formal organizations in communities, as we believe that working with these structures is important to reach targeted groups.
We believe that working with non-formal community structures is important for reach.

Trust: We work with partners and employees in a transparent manner to uphold the best governance and management policies and ensure accountability for resources.

Diversity: We support gender integration and inclusion of all races irrespective of sexual orientation. We promote, educate and protect the rights and dignity of community groups that we work with, especially the marginalized, children and women. We promote equity and recruit staff irrespective of their ethnicity, religion, and race.

Clean Environment: We believe in evidence-based clean solutions to solve environmental issues, and that working in the nexus of climate change and health will save lives and reduce disease burden in affected communities

Data Driven: We believe in collecting and using the evidence from data to advance health and environmental solutions.

Innovation: We are driven by change and leverage crosscutting practices, expertise and processes within our organization to deliver quality work.

Our Board & Advisers

Michael Egboh

Michael Egboh has over 20 years of Senior Executive experience in providing technical and programmatic leadership to governments, donors, and the private sector, implementing complex regional and country-level programs. Strong engagement and relationship building with major bilateral, multilateral, and private foundations in Sub Sahara Africa including; Pathfinder International, CIDA, USAID, DFID, JICA, Ford Foundation, MacArthur and Packard Foundation on full-cycle management of public health and service delivery programs, including fundraising, design, budget planning, and monitoring and evaluation.

Mira Mehta

Mira Mehta is co-founder and CEO of Tomato Jos – a fully integrated farming and processing agribusiness in Northern Nigeria that produces tomato paste and other agricultural products for the domestic market. Before founding Tomato Jos, Miss Mehta worked in the financial services and healthcare sectors in New York and Nigeria, respectively, where she gained valuable technical skills, developed an empathetic worldview, and built a strong network that would empower her to launch a business at the base of the pyramid. She is a graduate of Brown University and Harvard Business School and has lived in Nigeria since 2008.

Dr. Akudo Ikpeazu

Dr. Akudo Ikpeazu, has two decades of experience in public health policy, program development, and strategic planning. She has had direct responsibility for designing and deploying public health programmes including those for HIV/AIDS, Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health, at different levels of the health system, and provided leadership for designing and implementing innovative approaches for scaling up access to HIV and Hepatitis Prevention, treatment and care services. Dr. Akudo’s primary research interest is in health systems research and over the years, she has successfully led and managed multicultural and multidisciplinary teams, demonstrating a commitment to championing greater social inclusion for key and vulnerable populations.

Prince Aghatise Erediauwa

Prince Aghatise Erediauwa holds a B.Sc. (Hons) degree in Economics and Computer Science from the State University of New York, a degree in Law and an MBA from Lagos Business School/IESE, Barcelona, Spain. Prince Erediauwa served as Commissioner for Finance in Edo State and also worked with The Nigerian Stock Exchange as General Manager where he helped formulate many capital market policies. He had previously worked as Associate Counsel with the Law Firm of Akin Sikuade (SAN) in Lagos. He, however, began his working career as a Systems Analyst in the United States of America with the giant sporting equipment manufacturer, Champion Products, Inc.

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Salma Abubakar Mijinyawa

Salma Abubakar Mijinyawa is a registered midwife and public health nurse with over 20 years of experience. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Nursing and a master’s degree in public health. Throughout her career, Salma has held various leadership positions, such as a state team leader for the DFID-funded Project Women 4 Health where she coordinated the implementation of state-wide activities. She has also served as a learning manager, setting up a human resource pool for the health learning hub at Bayero University, Kano. Most recently, she served as the Deputy National Program Manager where she was responsible for ensuring the effective implementation of various programs and initiatives across 6 states and overseeing all technical activities of the organization. Her expertise in public health has made significant positive impact in the communities where she worked with improved health outcomes.

Garba Abdul

Garba Abdul has over twenty-five years of experience in providing Child Development, Maternal and Neonatal Health services with robust skills in program design, implementation and monitoring and evaluation. Garba provided leadership for the Child Development and Grant Programme; an over GBP 69 million, DFID grant being implemented by Save the Children international. Subsequently, he led Clinton Health Access Initiative efforts in strengthening routine immunization and introduction of new vaccines in Nigeria, providing strategic direction and management support to Federal and State governments. Similarly, he was Lead COVID-19 Consultant for the Bill Gate grant to Clinton Health Access Initiative, and Community Engagement Consultant - Maternal Neonatal Child Health and Family Planning in Kano State. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Nursing Sciences from Lincoln Institute of Health Sciences (Latrobe University) and a Master’s degree in Health Planning from Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. He is currently pursuing a doctorate in Public Health from Walden University, Baltimore. He is a member of the American Public Health Association and a Fellow College of Nursing, Australia.

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Dr. Raphael Naale

Dr. Raphael Naale is the Director of Special Duties (Health) at Bori Polytechnic, Rivers State. He is a Member of the Royal Society of Public Health (RSPH), United Kingdom, Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) and a fellow of the Institute of Public Administration of Nigeria. In 2016, he received John Griffith’s Prize for Overall Distinction in the MPH-I Programme, at the University of Leeds where he graduated with an overall distinction grade. The desire to work in a tertiary education institution strengthened his resolve to leave the Rivers State Ministry of Health and Rivers State University Teaching Hospital, having started his career as a Medical Officer, and actively involved in both administrative and clinical services with rotational posting through secondary health facilities in the state, especially in Accident and Emergency Units and Surgery departments across Rivers State.

AFRIDA Management Staff

Dr. Nnanna Victor Onyekwere | MPH, FWACP, FNIM
Executive Director

Dr. Nnanna is a public health physician with over 30 years of combined experience in the public and private sectors. He was the former Director of Public Health, Rivers State Ministry of Health and former Provost, Rivers State College of Health Science and Technology. He currently leads AFRIDA’s management team towards achieving its vision of providing an effective healthcare delivery ecosystem in Sub-Saharan Africa adapted to changing economic, health and climate change impact.

Dr. Lawretta Adaobi | MSc, PhD Sociology
Director, Community Development Programme

Dr. Lawretta is a Medical Sociologist and Anthropologist. She received her earlier training as a Nurse and Midwife and went on to acquire a doctorate degree in Sociology with a particular interest in clinical sociology and macro practice social works. She has over 20 years of teaching experience from delivering lectures on maternal and child health care services in Schools of Nursing across Nigeria, Rivers State College of Health Science and Technology and Rivers State University in Nigeria.

Chinyere Onyewotu | LLB Law
Lead, Legal & Compliance

Chinyere is a graduate of the prestigious Ahmadu Bello University, Nigeria and leads AFRIDA’s legal services, where she supports AFRIDA’s corporate service delivery in relation to the evaluation of prospective projects and partners, business process outsourcing and fulfilment services, information and tracking of delivery schedules, and processing of transactions, operational assistance, and the formulation of organizational development policies and other operational concerns.

JohnBosco Ezenwa | BSc, MSc. Statistics
Lead, Research & Innovation

JohnBosco has a decade of experience in providing strategic and specialized programmatic expertise in areas of public health intervention, community development and the environment. He leads relationship building and performance management for projects in collaboration with governments and the private sector, including formal and non-formal organizational community structures to build local and national strategic partnerships, and programming for impact-driven changes that strengthen healthcare systems and improve the lives of community groups, particularly where healthcare intersects with the environment.

Tajuddeen Maaruf Bai | BSc, MPA Public Policy and Administration, PMP
Project Manager

Tajuddeen has 11 years of experience in Project management and contributing to the ambitions and management of organizational project delivery, identifying and mitigating potential project risks, and leading AFRIDA’s Project Management Office (PMO), including organizational change management, in-field community sensitization, awareness campaigns, community dialogue and stakeholder engagement at all levels. He has managed various projects notably, Women Development and Empowerment of Nigeria (SWODEN), Youth Access Project funded by UKAID and other community-based health management information system (CBHMIS) projects.

Our Approach

Our Approach

In the AFRIDA approach, the people come first. We reach our target groups by collaborating with governments, the private sector and both formal and non-formal local leadership in the communities. We pay particular attention to hard-to-reach communities, women and children and marginalized communities, including areas affected by conflict and climate change.  Rather than taking a one-size-fits all approach to the work, we take care to map out the non-formal community structures and influencers everywhere we work, and we pay attention to building the capacity of these partners to enhance the sustainability and relevance of our interventions.

Our programs are data-driven. We conduct assessments and analyze the results along with any other available sources of data together with the community and government. We view this as a crucial component of our work, establishing a learning curve that guides us to make any necessary program adjustment and to better measure our impact.

We have a relentless drive to impact change. We look for innovative and creative ways of doing things with a sense of urgency, especially in relation to climate change and healthcare.

Our Projects

<b>Vaccines & Immunization</b><br>Community-Based Assessment of low and high-performing LGAs in Routine Immunization uptake across 40 Local Government Areas in Lagos, Rivers and Niger States with over 400 stakeholders and 1200 women and caregivers, aimed at improving routine immunization uptake by children U-5 by understanding barriers and factors that promote uptake from stakeholders in low and high performing LGAs in the recipient states. <br><br> Assessment of coverage categorization-specific wastage rate and potential determinate of vaccines wastage in Nigeria to generate data on vaccines wastage rate for efficient vaccine forecasting in Nigeria, a measure of state category-specific wastage rates, and provide for a better understanding of the optimal vial presentation in Lagos, Rivers, Imo, Ogun, Nasarawa, Kaduna, Niger, Bauchi, Taraba, Kano Kebbi, Zamfara, Jigawa, Sokoto States.

<b>Data</b><br>Quarterly data quality assessment, monitoring and evaluation services for the Accelerating Nutrition Results in Nigeria (ANRiN) Project for the Provision of a Basic Package of Nutrition Services in 18 LGAs of Kano State.

<b>Capacity Development</b><br>Recruitment and training of 400 frontline healthcare workers in Rivers, Cross River, Enugu and Niger states on Case management and IPC on COVID-19.

<p><strong>Sexual and Reproductive Health</strong><br> Assessment of Women's preference in accessing cervical cancer screening and treatment services in Lagos state in partnership with Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) and Complete Health Impact Development Alliance.</p> <p><strong>Capacity Development</strong><br> Facilitated the training of trainers for 68 Biomedical Engineers from across Nigeria, including the cascading of the BMEs training in other states across the 6 geopolitical zones of the country.</p> <p>Training of 344 Biomedical Engineers/ Technicians on oxygen equipment inventory management and field assessments of Primary, Secondary and tertiary health facilities and oxygen Pressure Swing Adsorption plants (PSAs) across the 8 states of Bauchi, Bornu, Gombe, Kaduna, Nasarawa, Niger, Sokoto, and Yobe states.<br> </p>

<strong>Sexual and Reproductive Health</strong><br> AFRIDA in consortium with Helium Health and Solina Centre for International Development and Research (SCIDaR) through MSD for Mothers support the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGoN) and the three states of Kano, Delta and Lagos to improve the quality of maternal care, reduce maternal mortality and ultimately strengthen systems for safer childbirth through the “FOR M(om) Project.

<b>HIV</b><br> Early Infant Diagnosis (EID) of HIV infection as part of maternal and child health service package integrated into Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV (PMTCT) interventions. AFRIDA provided support to the HIV Unit of the Ministry of Health in partnership with Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) to provide access to sourcing DBS kits, support with sample transport and results return, including technical support to the health care workers on the frontline ensuring that early initiation of treatment commences once HIV Diagnosis is made. Our efforts helped to identify HIV-positive infants and ensure that they are placed on life-saving ARVs – these efforts led to a 3-fold increase of positive infants initiated early on treatment. <br> <br> <strong>Data</strong><br> Health facilities baseline assessment using a standardized checklist, Survey CTO, and android mobile phones in selected facilities at both primary and secondary health care levels in the states of Rivers, Bauchi, Bornu, Gombe, Kaduna, Kano, Nasarawa, Niger, Sokoto and Yobe states, with demonstrated familiarity with the relevant and strategic stakeholders, environment and cultures in the states.<br> <br> Program impact evaluation and Data Quality Assessment of increasing access to Sexual Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Services in Niger, Lagos, Nasarawa, Kaduna, Kano and Rivers states.<br> <br> <strong>Health Financing</strong><br> State-level consensus building meetings on Health Financing Capacity building models in 8 States of Ekiti, Enugu, Lagos, Nasarawa, Niger, Kano, Kaduna and Yobe States. </p>

<strong>Environment</strong><br> Launch and scale-up of operational nature-based carbon-sequestration green ventures for startups in clean technology and agricultural chain across in Rivers State.

<strong>Capacity Development</strong><br> Training and deployment of the OpenLMIS RI/SA module to the National, Zonal, State Satellite and LGA levels of the immunization supply chain in the 36 States of Nigeria

Where We Work

Where We Work

  • Kano
  • Sokoto
  • Bornu
  • Gombe
  • Nasarawa
  • Bauchi
  • Yobe
  • Jigawa
  • Katsina
  • Plateau
  • Niger
  • Abuja-FCT
  • Lagos
  • Ogun
  • Imo
  • Bayelsa
  • Adamawa
  • Rivers
  • Enugu
  • Cross River
  • Akwa Ibom
  • Delta
  • Ekiti
  • Zamfara

Our Partners

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Contact us

Our Location

Suite 118 Adamawa Plaza

Central Business District (CBD)

Abuja, FCT Nigeria

Let's Talk

+234 803 702 5683

E-mail Us

info@afrida.org.ng www.afrida.org.ng



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