MTN Group Foundation and the Gates Foundation have unveiled a $25 million AI-enabled maternal health initiative in Nigeria aimed at improving access to quality maternal health care and reducing high burden of maternal mortality in Nigeria.
The first-of-its-kind Maternal Health
Multiplier platform aims to expand access to AI-enabled maternal health care in Nigeria targeting 500,000 women in Nigeria by 2030
The MTN Group Foundation (MTN) and the Gates Foundation announced the four-year partnership Tuesday at Semafor’s Next 3 Billion event, on the sidelines of the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
According to a statement from the Gates Foundation, the partnership begins with an initial investment of approximately US$25 million between 2026 and 2030, including direct and in-kind contributions from the Gates Foundation and MTN. This anchor
investment is intended to catalyse additional funding and support future expansion intoother markets over time.
The initiative aims to improve maternal health outcomes through an integrated digital ecosystem that connects women, frontline health workers, and primary health care facilities. It also aims to equip 5,000 frontline health workers with tools to identify complications from pregnancy and childbirth early, and enable 500 health facilities to deliver more consistent, higher-quality maternal health care.
The Gates Foundation, noted that the world has made real progress on maternal survival, cutting deaths by 40% since 2000, but added that the progress has stalled, and where a woman lives still shapes whether she survives childbirth with sub-Saharan Africa bearing 250 times more risk than in Western Europe.
It disclosed that Nigeria has made real progress in reducing maternal deaths over the past decade, but a large burden remains to be addressed, noting that the country accounts for nearly 30% of all maternal deaths worldwide.
‘ While Many of these deaths are preventable, but with only 59% of women completing four or more antenatal care visits, warning signs often go undetected until it’s too late’, the statement read.
‘Both the scale of that challenge and the urgency it represents are why Nigeria was selected as the first market for implementation of the Maternal Health Multiplier’, it added.
Bosun Tijani, Nigeria’s minister of communications, innovation, and digital economy revealed that 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,’ he said.
According to Muhammad Pate, Nigeria’s
coordinating minister of health and social welfare, strengthening primary healthcare and empowering the frontline health workers who deliver it are core to 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,’ Pate said.
Ralph Mupita, MTN Group president and CEO opined that 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.
‘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 true value of innovation lies in its ability to improve lives and create better futures for generations to come,’ he added.
Mark Suzman, CEO of the Gates Foundation noted that AI has enormous potential to improve health, but only if its benefits reach the people who stand to gain the most.
‘ That’s where philanthropy has a role to play: not as a substitute for investment, but as a catalyst for it. Programs 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,’ Suzman said.
The Maternal Health Multiplier is designed to be affordable, reliable, and consistent, and it builds on Nigeria’s flagship Maternal and Neonatal Mortality Reduction Innovation Initiative (MAMII), which is being deployed by the Federal Ministry of Health under its Sector-Wide Approach (SWAp).