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Born Free’s first country partnership began in 2012 with the Government of Nigeria. This partnership set the foundation for our investment model for catalytic talent: working directly with governments to recruit, hire, train, and embed catalytic talent directly into government in order to spark improvements and accelerate program results.

The partnership supported an exceptional team of 12 people, led by Dr. Charity Chenge and Dr. Lilian Anomnachi-David, which focused relentlessly on sparking change toward eMTCT at both the federal and state level. They served as teammates alongside their government counterparts to tackle challenges related to goal setting and work planning, program data quality and quantity, and to troubleshoot key areas of operations that had fallen off the radar of Nigeria’s response to HIV.

These efforts contributed to impressive program results. From 2012 to 2014, the proportion of women living with HIV initiated on antiretroviral (ARV) prophylaxis increased by 60%. This is a massive change in a system that has many challenges. Though Nigeria’s journey to eMTCT continues, this jump start will be remembered as a critical step.

Over the past 3 years, the team also spearheaded several initiatives that will continue to scale – operations support services for early infant diagnosis, difficult and deep cleansing of the country’s health program data, and HIV service delivery among private medical practices.

Born Free’s formal role as convener and manager of this partnership came to a close in December 2015, but the team in Nigeria will remain, with continued support from some of our existing private partners. We are proud and grateful for our lead private partners and are excited for this partnership to serve as a platform for years to come