Nigeria: Access Bank Partners ‘Friends Africa’ on Health Financing

This Day(Nigeria):
Access Bank Plc has it went into partnership with the ‘Friends of the Global Fund Africa’ (Friends Africa), a pan-African non-governmental organisation in developing strategies for sustainable health financing in the country.
To this end, the bank hosted a stakeholders’ engagement forum tagged: “Sustainable Health Financing in Nigeria,” in Abuja.
The Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Access Bank, Mr. Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, said in a statement that the bank was committed sustainably to eradication of AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. This, he said informed the initial donation of $1million to the global fund to fight the pandemic as well as its partnership with ‘Friends Africa’ to host the forum
Aig-Imoukhuede stressed that the global fund’s “Gift from Africa project” was designed to “provide the African private sector with an opportunity to provide responsible leadership and demonstrate to the world that Africans are prepared to play an active part in solving the continent’s challenges.”
The Access Bank boss noted that through the advocacy effort of the organisation, “over one million Africans are now on Anti-Retroviral therapy, 2.8 million on tuberculosis treatment and 30 million bed nets distributed to protect the people against malaria.”
Friends Africa’s dreams, he said, aligns with Access Bank’s corporate goals on community service, which he stated was directed at taking succour to the less privileged by investing in local communities.
Speaking on the forum, Executive Director of the Global Fund, Mark Dybul, said: “Double-digit declines in mortality from the three diseases could be jeopardised if donors fail to top up the fund. Friends Africa is committed to financing of prevention and treatment of the AIDS virus and other global killers will use the forum platform to urge top donors to provide an additional $15 billion (€11.5 billion) to fight infectious diseases over the next three years or risk reversing a decade of advances in care.”