Nigeria

We work with government of Nigeria and other partners to improve health outcomes, boost agricultural productivity, expand access to digital financial services, and empower women and other marginalized populations with greater economic opportunities.
Eno Ekpo, from Gender Mobile, speaks with students during a presentation on the University of Abuja campus in Abuja, Nigeria

At a glance

  • Nigeria has made significant progress in reaching its health goals, including recently eradicating wild polio from the country.
  • We work with the Nigerian government and other partners to help address a range of health issues, including family planning, nutrition, and strengthening primary health care and public health systems.
  • We support efforts to help smallholder farmers in Nigeria increase their yields and reduce food insecurity in the country.
  • We also support the government’s efforts to ensure that women, smallholder farmers, and other marginalized populations have access to digital financial services.

Overview

We want all of Nigeria’s children, mothers, and families to be able to lead healthy and productive lives, and we want the country’s most marginalized people to have opportunities to lift themselves out of poverty. To work toward these goals, we partner with the government, the private sector, and civil society organizations.

We aim to reduce preventable deaths in Nigeria by focusing on maternal and child health. We invest in programs that provide prenatal through postnatal care, as well as childhood immunization programs. We also support efforts to address common health challenges such as pneumonia, diarrheal diseases, and malnutrition, and we work to improve access to clean water and proper sanitation and hygiene. We look for ways to bolster primary health care delivery and integrate services to ensure a strong overall health system.

To help smallholder farmers boost their productivity, we invest in efforts to introduce higher-yield strains of important crops such as yams, cassava, sorghum, cowpeas, and rice; increase the productivity of livestock; and improve the tools and systems that are available to farmers. We also support research and policies that help improve the lives of smallholder farmers over the long term.

We support the government's goal of ensuring that women, smallholder farmers, and other marginalized populations have access to digital financial services, which can help them save, spend, and plan for the future more effectively.

A pharmacist in an urban public health center in Kaduna, Nigeria, discusses medication with customer.
A pharmacist in an urban public health center in Kaduna, Nigeria, discusses medication with customer.

Foundation grants: Nigeria

See grant commitments related to Nigeria made by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and previous foundations of the Gates family (William H. Gates Foundation, Gates Library Foundation, and Gates Learning Foundation) from 1994 onward.

More about our work in Africa

Regional office

Our work in Nigeria is based out of our office in Abuja.

Fact sheet: Our work in Africa

A brief overview of our priorities in Africa.

Ideas

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