Institutional strengthening, capacity-building and organizational development have been a focus of development practice since the 1950s. It draws on a range of disciplines, including governance, leadership, institutional and behavioral economics. Recent approaches to capacity-building are usefully drawing on systems and complex theories. However, it is in this mixed performance that countries (including Nigeria) have started having insight on the relevance of strengthening capacity of Health State Insurance Agency SHIA staff in Nigeria and continue hoping for the future we strive to build. Regardless of the challenging health barriers, we have embraced innovations to propel the health insurance agencies to achieving a universal goal.
Despite the progress in improving institutional health capacities for staff, Health Insurance Agencies are still struggling to build capacities required for the daily operationalization for a smooth running. This gap may lead conflict of work performance challenge that may hinders the objectives to be achieved. However, The Resilient and sustainable system for health is one strategy recognized to bridge this gap within Nigeria. A remarkable vehicle for scaling up tools available today to ensure that all citizens are beneficiaries of the health benefit package in Nigeria, using Oyo state as an example. Based on its technical expertise, Health System Consult Limited (HSCL) has designed a model with input from key stakeholders to address challenges within the (HSIA) across three priority states where the implementation is currently taking place.
The urgency of the need to tackle the challenges has led to Implementing the Global Fund Resilient and Sustainable Systems for Health (RSSH) Project in Oyo state is supporting the State’s Health Insurance Agency in implementing a social health insurance scheme. To meet its mandate of providing health insurance cover for all residents of the State, HSCL supported the state in developing a responsive capacity boosting plan that is in tune with global leading practice to achieve a goal. This was accompanied one-off training sessions and workshops on health insurance and claims management. This is intended to provide clarity of function and processes for the Agency to have a more efficient system.
Based on these findings, capacity building intervention included a skill and competency assessment conducted for all staff of the agency to enable them develop requisite knowledge in their day to day operations, thus, an improved performance of the State Health Insurance Agency guaranteed. In comparison with the pre and post-test, a 28% knowledge gain was highlighted from the participants. The Executive secretary affirmed saying ‘it was a remarkable start knowing it was their training and re-iterated that the anchor for free health mission in Oyo State is health insurance to make health better’
Through efforts made by HSCL and progress from the participants engagement as stated above, we hope for a positive transformation in a long-term and observable expected outcome are achieved. Investing more on boosting capacity-strengthening within health insurance agencies will bring the country closer to reducing financial burden and enhance Universal Health Coverage (UHC) by 2030, as it will enable us to bring various critical interventions to scale, building resilient health systems.
