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Tag: Bill-and-Melinda-Gates-Foundation

  • Gates Foundation names new Africa Director

    The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have named Cheikh Oumar Seydi the new Africa Director as it deepens work in the continent.

    Before his appointment, Seydi, from Senegal, was the regional director for sub-Saharan Africa at the International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank Group in Nairobi.

    He also served as IFC’s director for eastern and southern Africa and as its global director of human resources covering IFC offices worldwide and has had work experience with Ernst & Young in New York, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

    With the Foundation expanding its work in Nigeria and Ethiopia, Chris Elias, president, Global Development at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said in a statement that Seydi would “play a central role in the foundation’s work across the world’s second largest continent.”

    Read Also: Gates Foundation, Dangote, govt to fight malnutrition

    Speaking on the work ahead of him, Seydi said: “I am looking forward to working with our partners and exploring new strategies that will help increase the foundation’s impact on the continent.”

    Seydi added that he was excited to join the foundation’s efforts to support Africa’s development.

    “This is a critical time in Africa’s development and I am excited to join an organisation that is committed to supporting African countries in meeting their development goals.”

    In the last two years, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has grown its activities in Africa, employing twice as many workers in the process of seeking solutions to health, economic and other challenges on collaboration with other partners.

     

  • Fortification: Gates Foundation, Dangote, FG engage food processors on Nutrition

    The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Aliko Dangote Foundation and the Federal government have joined forces to fight acute malnutrition in Nigeria by engaging with the behemoths in food processing sector as well as regulatory agencies on prioritizing food fortification right from the processing stage.

    Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, the Minister of State, Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, Hajia Aisha Abubakar, the Director, Nutrition and Global Development, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Shawn Baker, President Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, BUA Group President, Abdul-Samad Rabiu among other leading processors at a forum in Lagos signed a communique to boost enforcement of key regulations and incentivizing adherence; integrate food fortification as key performance indicator, incorporate framework evaluation as well as foster the enabling environment that provides technical solution for sustainable production.

    The Government representative, Abubakar, speaking on the agreement said the essential benefits of food fortification were enormous and crucial to resolving the health challenges especially in the nation’s minority population. She pledged that the government would work towards making the operating environment for processors less tedious.

    “This meeting was to ensure that everybody is on board. We had a meeting with the CEOs to ensure that they will commit to ensuring that they fortify their products and government will also commit to making sure that whatever challenge they have in the industry which is basically the cost of nutrients and that government is able to do something to reduce their cost of production,” she said.

    According to the Director, Nutrition and Global Development Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Shawn Baker, the Foundation will increase its focus on providing technical support to industries with the backing of Technoserve, an international development agency contracted by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to implement a project on Strengthening African Processors of Fortified Foods (SAPFF). Support will also be given to government agencies in the bid to stifle regulations on unwholesome practices in the country.

    He said: “We have actually been working on a large scale of food fortification over 15 years because after when you think about malnutrition, you think about a child on the street but a more huge problem are deficiencies in essential vitamins and minerals or immune functions which can lead to death, they can lead to birth defects. But food fortification is almost a miraculous way you can help resolve that by adding to commonly consumed food in the case of Nigeria, Salt, flour cooking oil and sugar. The industries represented at the dialogue represents over 70 per cent of the market of all of those foods consumed by Nigerian households every day by effectively putting in those nutrients to ensuring that mums and kids are getting many of the essential nutrients.”

    The Managing Director, PZ Wilmar West Africa, Mr Santoshi Pillai voicing the stance of the processors assured that processing procedures will be made to align with global best practices in order to win the fight against malnutrition.

    According to him, it is imperative industries and private sector partners to address key themes of understanding malnutrition and how it can be resolved in terms of food fortification. “Education of Nigerian consumers, lack of compliance, the role of Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON), National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) in ensuring that there is compliance will be our focus. In terms of cost, there is an assumption that food fortification is very costly. So we discussed that we should bring the cost of these items down and then we discussed that we should look at the government reducing tariffs.”

    The Country Director Technoserve, Larry Umunna explained that the firm will provide customized technical assistance to food processors in the wheat flour, vegetable oil and sugar sectors.

  • Bill & Melinda Gates foundation to help Nigeria repay $76m polio facility

    Bill & Melinda Gates foundation to help Nigeria repay $76m polio facility

    Nigeria has authorised Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to start the repayment of 76 million dollars polio eradication facility to Japan.

    The Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun, made this known in Abuja on Tuesday when she received a delegation of Japanese House of Councillors Parliamentarians.

    She said that the delegates were in Nigeria to assess the level of usage of Overseas Development Assistance (ODAs) extended to Nigeria since 2014.

    She added that the authority to trigger repayment was given to Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation following the eradication of polio in the country.

    She noted that the eradication of polio was made possible as a result of the ODA facility provided by the Japanese Government valued at 76 million dollars in 2014.

    She recalled that the ODA was structured for repayment after four years and that by this development, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation would start repaying the facility to Japan this year.

    Adeosun while marketing Nigeria to the Japanese delegation noted that Nigeria was fast growing and evolving from negative areas to positive areas through its determined fight against corruption.

    She added that “because Nigeria is a middle-income country, we will require the expertise of Japanese companies for infrastructure development.

    “Nigeria is a good place to invest because it is a rising investment destination.

    “I promise that the government will make life easy for Japanese investors wishing to do business in Nigeria.”

    In his address, the leader of the delegation, Mr Kiyoshi Ejima, described Nigeria as a powerhouse with rich natural resources with which Japan tried to strengthen the relationship with.

    Nigeria, he said, had set the target of becoming one of the top 20 economies by the year 2020 and he assured that “Japan will support Nigeria toward realising its 2020 target.”

  • GSK starts big African study of injectable drug to prevent HIV

    GSK starts big African study of injectable drug to prevent HIV

    ViiV Healthcare, GlaxoSmithKline ( GSK ) Plc’s HIV unit, said on Thursday it started an African study to evaluate long-acting injectable drug for the prevention of its infection in sexually active women.

    ViiV Healthcare said in a statement that the cabotegravir study seeks to enroll 3,200 women aged 18 to 45 years from sub-Saharan African countries,.

    The “HPTN” 084 Phase III study will evaluate injections given every two months, ViiV Healthcare said.

    The company said that the study is being conducted through a public-private funding by ViiV Healthcare, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

    Viiv Healthcare in 2016 had started a large study on HIV-uninfected men and transgender women who have sex with men to test an experimental long-acting injection for preventing the virus that causes AIDS.

    Reuters/NAN

    Read Also: World AIDS Day: NGO screens 4.5m Nigerians for HIV

  • Gates foundation urges stakeholders to address population growth

    Gates foundation urges stakeholders to address population growth

    • Says it is essential to address economic, social challenges

    Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) has called for the need to look into the issues of rapid population growth in Nigeria.

    While not calling for a legislation for birth control, Dr Mairo Mandara, Country Director of the Foundation said the country might need to declare an emergency on the population with a view to improving the quality of health of the people.

    Nigeria is currently the seventh (7th) largest population in the world, with the predictions to become the third largest population by 2050 if the rate of growth is not checked. 

    With two and a half percent share of world population, Mandara noted that Nigeria is responsible for ten percent of global maternal death at 576/100,000 live birth according to 2013 National Demographic Health Survey.

    To this, she said the knowledge of family planning is essential; stressing, however, said that the issue of the number of children a family should have still remains a personal decision. 

    The Country Director who gave a keynote address to mark the one week 2017 World Population Day with the theme “Family planning, birth spacing: empowering people, developing nations” said: ” for Nigeria, child spacing and family planning are essential for improving the lives of women and children and preventing maternal mortality.

    “Family Planning is essential in addressing the focal and economic challenges, social problems and health issues, so much so that it may necessitate declaring emergency if possible to address the emerging multi-challenges of high maternal mortality ratio, high child mortality rate, civil unrest, poor amenities in schools and social services for rapidly increasing population.” 

    She further added: ” Nigeria houses the 7th largest population in the world and predictions potation her to become the 3rd in 33 years from now if the current annual growth rate of 3.2 percent prevails. 

    “The population age structure is pyramidal with a very large cohort of children at the base. Women constitute almost half of the total population of which those in their reproductive years represent 50 percent of the entire female population. 11 percent of the females are adolescents age 15-19 years and 23 percent of these girls have already commenced motherhood.”

    While also acknowledging that the knowledge of family planning in the country is very high, she, however, said the practice of modern family planning still remains very low. 

    Mandara stressed that using modern family planning method helps ” to time and space pregnancies in an effective way to improve pregnancy outcomes and allows couples to realise their desired number of children.

    “Family planning is a life-saving intervention and one the core pillars of safe because among others it saves women’s lives.”

    She further stressed that any amount spent on family planning will yield economic and other gains that can propel development forward and are thus critical to the success of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

    “Thus, investing in family planning is investing in the health and rights of women and couples worldwide. These investments also yield economic and other gains that can propel development forward and thus critical to the success of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development.

    Also, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Country Director, Dr Diene Keita said some 20 million women in the country lack access to safe and effective family planning methods.

    Keita who was represented by Mr Osaretin Adorni stressed that “fulfilling their unmet demands would save lives by averting 750,000 unintended pregnancies and reducing by one-third the estimated 40,000 annual maternal deaths.”

    The country director hereby pledged that UNFPA “has set an ambitious transformative goal to eliminate all unmet demand for family planning by 2039.”

  • Gates Foundation sinks 1 million dollars into research projects in Kebbi varsity

    Gates Foundation sinks 1 million dollars into research projects in Kebbi varsity

    The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has expended one million dollars on three research projects at the Kebbi State University of Science and Technology, Aliero.

    The Acting Vice Chancellor of the University, Prof. Bello Malami, disclosed this on Tuesday in Aliero, when he inaugurated a Bio-technology Laboratory and Screen House built by the Foundation.

    Malami said that the Foundation had immensely assisted the university in its research projects and staff capacity building which had improved the teaching and learning environment.

    ”Our staff wrote proposals which were accepted by the Foundation; this university has three projects sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to enhance learning,” he said.

    Dr. Ibrahim Mohammed, the team leader of West Africa Virus Epidemiology (WAVE), in his remarks, said that one project focused on building capacity for the control of cassava virus.

    “Aside the control of cassava virus in northern Nigeria, another research focused on the control of Yambedna virus, with another centred on controlling viruses in some root and tuber crops,” he said.

  • Tambuwal to Bill Gates: Come partner with us

    Tambuwal to Bill Gates: Come partner with us

    Sokoto state government has sought for a partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for the development of agriculture and related sectors in the state.

    “We appreciate your efforts in improving healthcare delivery in Sokoto state in particular in Nigeria as a whole. I want to inform that the potential agricultural sector holds in Sokoto is enormous. We seek partnership with you to modernise the sector and improve the earnings of our farmers,” the state Governor, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal said during a video conference with Mr. Gates to assess the progress of Routine Immunisation in Sokoto.

    The immunisation programme is funded by the Gates, Dangote Foundation and the United Stated Agency for International Development (USAID).

    According to Tambuwal, with more than 85 percent of Sokoto’s population engaged in one form of agricultural activity or another, the partnership will create value for all parties and ensure rapid development of local farmers in the state.

    Agricultural development is one of the largest initiatives of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. To date, the Foundation has committed more than US$2 billion to agric development efforts in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

    In June this year, Gates launched a campaign to help extremely poor families in sub-Saharan Africa by giving them 100,000 chickens.

    According to him, raising and selling the birds can be efficient to tackle extreme poverty.

    Speaking on efforts to boost immunisation in Sokoto, Tambuwal assured the development partners that Sokoto government will meet its funding obligation, while a new data centre will be opened in the state ministry of health to ease collection and processing of data for proper planning.

     

     

     

  • Agency to partner states on agric

    Agency to partner states on agric

    A non-profit organisation, Synergos Nigeria, has expressed its commitment to reducing global poverty through partnership with governments to transform agriculture from subsistence farming to business.

    Its Country Director, Adewale Ajadi, spoke at a workshop to launch the State Partnership for Agriculture (SPA) in Abuja.

    He unveiled plans to utilise a systems change approach in reorienting and empowering key state actors in the transformation of the agriculture.

    Ajadi said gender inclusion and nutrition-sensitive approaches to food production, particularly cassava and rice, would be the focus of the transformation plan.

    He added: “With the projection of a doubling of the population of Nigeria by 2050 and the perennial challenges facing production and processing of agricultural commodities, there was need to change the face of agriculture in Nigeria.”

    The Country director added that the Bill-and-Melinda-Gates-Foundation-funded programme was engaged in a pilot project of the SPA programme in three states of Kogi, Benue and Kaduna to provide farmers with new farming techniques available in developed countries.

    “Our approach to Nigeria’s agriculture is to ensure that federal and state agricultural leaders themselves drive agricultural transformation while Synergos will provide the craft necessary for the systemic change across the complex issues of poverty.”