…Nigeria has made very significant progress in financial inclusion. Formal financial inclusion in Nigeria grew from 36 per cent in 2010 to 64 per cent in 2023. Access to digital payments more than doubled from 22 per cent in 2010 to 52 per cent in 2023, according to EFINA Access to Finance data. I will like to share ten lessons from financial inclusion that can be applied to scaling health solutions for systems impact and tackling Nigeria’s health equity challenges successfully.
There are huge correlations between financial exclusion and health exclusion in Nigeria. Financial exclusion is highest in North-West and North-East of Nigeria, and significantly above 60 per cent in many states. These same regions are also where Nigeria has the highest health exclusion and health equity challenges. Financial exclusion is also highest among women, particularly in the North, and the same is for health exclusion and health equity challenges. Financial exclusion is heavily rural skewed in Nigeria, and the same goes for health exclusion.
You can virtually superimpose Nigeria’s financial exclusion data (the EFINA Access to Finance Research) on top of the Nigeria health exclusion data in the Nigeria Demographic Health Studies (NDHS) and both will be near mirror images of each other. The connecting LINK between Nigeria’s financial exclusion and health exclusion is POVERTY. The more endemic the poverty, the higher the exclusion to health and financial access. There must therefore be ways in which the lessons of how Nigeria has significantly solved its financial exclusion access could be extrapolated or applied to solving its health access exclusion and equity challenges.
