Nigeria Targets Maternal, Newborn Health Challenges With Eight Local Innovations

The Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) and Grand Challenges Nigeria are set to showcase eight locally developed health innovations aimed at addressing maternal, newborn and child health challenges across the country.

The innovations, which include tools for detecting newborn infections, identifying birth defects and predicting severe pre-eclampsia, will be presented at the 2026 Annual Meeting and Innovation Exchange scheduled for Friday, November 13, in Abuja.

The meeting is expected to bring together state governments, researchers, health institutions, development partners and financing organisations to examine how locally developed research can be translated into practical healthcare solutions and expanded across Nigeria.

The projects will focus on some of the challenges confronting healthcare delivery, including newborn sepsis diagnosis, umbilical cord care, emergency maternal referrals, perinatal asphyxia research and digital support for identifying health risks.

Other areas include birth-defect identification, community-supported digital healthcare and the prediction of severe pre-eclampsia, a pregnancy complication that can pose serious risks to mothers and babies.

The organisers said the meeting would examine the policy decisions, institutional capacity and sustainable financing required to move promising innovations from research and pilot programmes into wider use.

With state governments playing a central role in healthcare delivery, the involvement of the NGF is expected to provide an opportunity to discuss how the innovations could be adopted and implemented across different states.

The African University of Science and Technology will also contribute a Policy Lab to examine the institutional processes and decisions required to translate research findings into healthcare interventions.

The meeting is themed, “Innovation to Impact: Evidence, Adoption, Uptake and Scale for Better Health in Nigeria.”

In a statement signed by the organisation’s media representative, Godwin A. Bamsa, the organisers said the exchange would combine research findings with practical implementation experiences and explore opportunities for replication and sustainable financing.

Grand Challenges Nigeria was launched in November 2024 as a platform to support locally led research and innovation in health and food security.

The initiative is anchored by the Nutrition Society of Nigeria in partnership with the Office of the Vice-President and the Federal Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology. It is supported by the Gates Foundation, with technical assistance from the Science for Africa Foundation.

The organisers, however, clarified that participation in the meeting or inclusion in the project showcase did not automatically guarantee funding or adoption of any of the innovations.

They said the discussions would help identify the evidence, institutional backing and financing required to determine the next steps for the projects.