Stakeholders Urge States To Match Budget Commitments With Action On Diseases

State governments have been urged to prioritise the elimination of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) by integrating dedicated funding for interventions into their annual health budgets.

The call was made at the 2026 Annual High-Level Advocacy Meeting on NTDs in Abuja, where stakeholders stressed the need for stronger government ownership, sustainable financing and accountability to protect elimination efforts from declining donor support.

The Commissioner for Health and Human Services in Benue State, Dr Paul Ogwuche, said governments must take greater responsibility for sustaining NTD programmes rather than relying predominantly on international development partners.

He warned that continued dependence on external funding could leave vulnerable communities without essential interventions if donor support declined.

Ogwuche said NTDs remained a significant public health concern in communities, particularly among vulnerable populations and rural dwellers.

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.

According to him, the changing donor financing landscape makes it necessary for governments to develop sustainable funding arrangements to achieve elimination targets.

Also speaking, 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.

She 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.

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

She emphasised that NTD elimination required collaboration beyond the health sector, particularly with agencies responsible for water, sanitation and hygiene, education and local government administration.

According to her, integrating NTD interventions into existing programmes would encourage coordinated action and ensure that responses were not implemented as isolated activities.

Earlier, the Head of NTD Monitoring and Evaluation, Mr Gambo Yakubu, called for stronger accountability in the implementation of state-level recommendations on NTD elimination.

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

Yakubu stressed that government budgetary commitments must be supported by actual releases to ensure effective implementation.

He urged state commissioners for health to verify funding reports submitted by their governments and ensure that reported allocations translated into interventions.

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

Neglected tropical diseases are a group of preventable and treatable diseases that disproportionately affect poor and vulnerable populations, particularly in communities with limited access to healthcare, clean water and adequate sanitation.

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

Beyond their health consequences, the diseases cause disability, disfigurement and, in some cases, death, while perpetuating poverty and undermining economic development.

The two-day meeting, themed: “Translating Commitments into Budgetary Action,” seeks to strengthen domestic financing for NTD elimination through dedicated budget lines in the 2027 health budgets of federal and state governments.

It also aims to improve expenditure monitoring, develop state-specific action plans and strengthen coordination between federal and state ministries of health to ensure effective implementation of domestically and donor-funded interventions.