Janet Ogundepo
The MTN Group Foundation and the Gates Foundation have announced a strategic partnership to launch the Nigeria Maternal Health Multiplier, a digital initiative that will deploy artificial intelligence-enabled tools to improve maternal health outcomes for 500,000 women in Nigeria by 2030.
The four-year partnership, according to a statement sent to PUNCH Healthwise, begins with an initial investment of $25 million between 2026 and 2030, comprising direct and in-kind contributions from both organisations.
The announcement was made at Semafor’s Next 3 Billion event on the sidelines of the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on September 22.
The statement noted that the platform will connect women, frontline health workers, and primary health care facilities through three components: AI-enabled, phone-based decision support tools for both frontline health workers and mothers, affordable smartphones and mobile data, and improved connectivity at health care facilities.
Beyond the 500,000 women it aims to reach, the initiative targets equipping 5,000 frontline health workers with tools to identify complications from pregnancy and childbirth early, and enabling 500 health facilities to deliver more consistent, higher-quality maternal health care, particularly in underserved communities.
The partnership comes against the backdrop of Nigeria accounting for nearly 30 per cent of all maternal deaths worldwide, with only 59 per cent of women completing four or more antenatal care visits.
The initiative is designed to complement Nigeria’s ongoing maternal and child health reforms, building on the Federal Ministry of Health’s flagship Maternal and Neonatal Mortality Reduction Innovation Initiative under its Sector-Wide Approach, and the anchor investment of $25 million is intended to catalyse additional funding and support future expansion into other African markets over time.
The statement noted that while the world had cut maternal deaths by 40 per cent since 2000, that progress had stalled, and in sub-Saharan Africa the risk of dying in childbirth remained roughly 250 times higher than in Western Europe.
Nigeria’s Minister of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, Dr Bosun Tijani, said the partnership represented the kind of collaboration the country needed to put its digital transformation to work for those who needed it most.
He said, “For too long, the biggest barrier to improving service delivery in Nigeria, whether in health, agriculture, or education, has not been a lack of innovations, but a lack of focus on the foundational systems necessary to drive adoption. Partnerships like this reflect the kind of collaboration we want to see more of in Nigeria — one that puts the country’s digital transformation to work for the people who need it most.”
The Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof Muhammad Pate, said the initiative aligned with the government’s primary health care reforms and its strategy of working with, rather than around, existing health systems.
He said, “Strengthening primary healthcare and empowering the frontline health workers who deliver it are core to our health sector reforms. Partnerships that work with our existing health systems, rather than around them, are exactly what’s needed to reach mothers who are still falling through the cracks. We welcome this collaboration and look forward to it strengthening the work already underway.”
The MTN Group President and Chief Executive Officer, Ralph Mupita, said the initiative aimed to demonstrate a scalable model for improving maternal and child health outcomes across Africa, using artificial intelligence to deliver locally relevant health insights directly to mothers and healthcare professionals.
He said, “The future of maternal health depends on ensuring that every mother, regardless of where she lives, can access the support she needs to make informed decisions throughout her journey. Technology is creating unprecedented opportunities to make healthcare more personalised, predictive and accessible.
“As artificial intelligence evolves, we can put trusted, locally relevant health insights directly into the hands of mothers and healthcare professionals, tailored to their unique needs and languages. Starting in Nigeria, our ambition is to demonstrate a scalable model for improving maternal and child health outcomes across Africa.”
The Chief Executive Officer of the Gates Foundation, Mark Suzman, said the programme was designed to ensure that the benefits of artificial intelligence in health reached the people who needed it most, rather than those who could already afford it.
He said, “AI has enormous potential to improve health, but only if its benefits reach the people who stand to gain the most. Left to the market alone, potential tends to benefit those who can already afford it, not the people who need it most. That is where philanthropy has a role to play: not as a substitute for investment, but as a catalyst for it.
“Programmes like the Maternal Health Multiplier are creating AI tools for and putting them into the hands of Nigerian mothers and frontline health workers, helping keep moms and their babies healthy.”
The statement further noted that the partnership brought together MTN’s connectivity infrastructure, digital inclusion capabilities, mobile financial services, device distribution networks, and local market execution expertise, with the Gates Foundation’s experience in maternal, newborn, and child health, digital health innovation, responsible AI, and evidence-based scale-up.
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