FG Begins Evaluation of Nigeria’s Health Security Capability

Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja

The federal government said it has commenced a second Joint External Evaluation (JEE) for the International Health Regulations (IHR) core capacities.

The JEE is a voluntary multi-sectoral process and one of the four components of the IHR monitoring and evaluation framework.

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) which disclosed this in a statement yesterday, explained that the process involves a diverse team of experts, collectively evaluating a nation’s preparedness and response capacities across 19 technical areas, under the guidance of relevant Ministries, Departments, and Agencies

According to the NCDC, the second the joint evaluation of Nigeria’s health security capacity commenced yesterday, through the assessment of the country’s IHR prescribed core capacities and would be concluded on 18th August 2023.

“Following on its first JEE, Nigeria is one of a handful of countries to undertake a second round of the JEE, utilising the JEE 3.0 tools.

“The JEE, a voluntary multi-sectoral process is one of the four components of the IHR monitoring and evaluation framework. This process involves a diverse team of experts, collectively evaluating a nation’s preparedness and response capacities across 19 technical areas, under the guidance of relevant Ministries, Departments, and Agencies.

“This underscores the holistic, multi-sectoral and all-of-government approach that is critical for national health security. The NCDC, as stipulated in the NCDC Act 2018, coordinates IHR implementation for the country.”

The Centre said that as a follow-up to the 2018-2023 NAPHS implementation, the 2023 JEE would enable Nigeria to critically appraise the current situation by chronicling the progress so far and by identifying new/persisting gaps and opportunities.

According to the NCDC, the insights gained from the evaluation would guide the development of the 2023-2028 NAPHS and ensure prioritised actions were included for interventions over the next five years.

It said the external evaluators are a team of experts and partners who would validate the score from the recently completed internal assessment.

“This external validation phase of the JEE involves a comprehensive review of presentations, documents, policies, and systems for each technical area.

“In addition, site visits will be conducted to national public health centres and institutes across the 19 technical areas. Following the reviews of the technical areas, validated scores will be aggregated to determine Nigeria’s 2023 JEE score which will signal our progress in detecting, assessing, reporting, and responding to public health events.

“The Government of Nigeria remains resolute in safeguarding the health and well-being of all its citizens,” the NCDC added.

In 2017, Nigeria conducted her first JEE using the JEE 1.0 tool which gave a readiness score of 39 per cent. Consequently, the 2018-2023 National Action Plan for Health Security (NAPHS) was developed to address identified gaps and recommendations from the 2017 evaluation.