TheCable

Kwara state’s community health insurance scheme has won a finalist prize at the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) development assistance committee awards for taking development initiative to scale.

The scheme entitles beneficiaries to subsidised all-year basic healthcare for a N500 premium.

Receiving the prize on Tuesday, Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed said the state government upscaled the scheme to promote human capital development and enhance access to quality healthcare in the rural areas.

He said the government aims to achieve universal coverage of the estimated one million rural dwellers in the state under the scheme by 2018.

The scheme had earlier received commendation from the UN and Bill Gates Foundation for its creative approach to pro-poor health care.

Ahmed applauded his predecessor, Bukola Saraki, for initiating the scheme in 2007 in Edu Local Government of the state.

It has now been extended to 10 local government areas in the state.

Governor Ahmed commended Kwara’s partners in the scheme, the Dutch Government, The Health Insurance Fund, Hygeia Community Health and PharmAccess Foundation.

Erik Solheim, chair of OECD Development Assistance Committee(DAC), said the objective of the prize is to support ideas that have been scaled up and that work in the real world.

He said the organization seeks to mobilize more investment in such scalable solutions.

PHOTO: Saraki and Ahmed holding the award certificate