Nigeria

National leadership:

Department of Child Development of the Federal Ministry of Women’s Affairs and Social Development (FMoWASD)

Contact person for the QI Initiative:

Dr. Rosemary Abdullahi, Director, Department of Child Development; Dr. MacJohn Nwaobiala, Deputy Director, Department of Child Development, Federal Ministry of Women’s Affairs and Social Development, macjnwaobiala@yahoo.com

Background

The Government of Nigeria in collaboration with donors, implementing partners and Civil Society Organisations (CBOs and FBOs) has developed National Guidelines and Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) for OVC that highlight minimum services for OVC. The process of developing the SOP was part of the development of the National Plan of Action and an initiative to assess the quality of services being provided to orphans and vulnerable children by service providers and implementers.

Achievements

  • Based on the National Plan of Action (NPA), developed a two-year priority plan that guides OVC stakeholders to implement appropriate interventions aimed at contributing to the accomplishment of the strategic objectives of the NPA.
  • PEPFAR partners are working collaboratively to develop OVC referral networks to increase access to services that are not provided by the primary service provider organisation.
  • Held a four-day training workshop for PEPFAR partners on the process of developing child protection and participation programming principles. As a result, many partners have already developed child protection and participation protocols for their organisations.
  • Currently collecting data to conduct a National OVC Situation Analysis and Assessment
  • Developed Psychosocial Support training manual and a Vulnerability Index to guide organisations in selecting OVC programme beneficiaries.

Current Focus

The current plan is to complete the National Situational Analysis and Assessment of OVC and disseminate key results to guide stakeholders in programming decisions and interventions as well as help in shaping policy formulation on OVC. In addition, the Federal Ministry of Women’s Affairs and Social Development will collaborate with USG implementing partners and CBOs/FBOs to adapt the Child Status Index (CSI) and conduct training on its use for monitoring and supervision in order to ultimately improve OVC care and mainstream QA/QI.

Challenges & Lessons

  • The development of the two-year priority plan by the Federal Ministry of Women’s Affairs and Social Development is streamlining the intervention of multiple partners in achieving the NPA strategic objectives.
  • Operationalising Quality Improvement strategies in a diverse country like Nigeria requires intensive consensus building and mobilisation

Last updated June 2008


Resources

National Guidelines and Standards of Practice on Orphans and Vulnerable Children

Nigerian Federal Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development, Global HIV/AIDS Initiative Nigeria, PEPFAR, USAID, 2007, PDF, 84 pages, 1.1 MB