John Njoku is a renowned public health expert with over a decade of experience supporting public health interventions in Nigeria with funding from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM). His areas of expertise include healthcare financing, public financial management, health leadership and governance, public-and private sector institutional and organizational capacity strengthening, human resources for health, supply chain management, and communicable and non-communicable diseases program management.
John is a senior program officer at R4D in Abuja, Nigeria, where he plays an integral role in technical and project management aspects of The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF)-funded health financing technical assistance project. He supports the technical assistance efforts to the Government of Nigeria on health care financing policy development and implementation at the federal and state levels by engaging key stakeholders in joint policy dialogue, generating evidence to inform health financing design options, and helping to develop implementation “know-how” to support the roll-out of health financing reforms at the state level towards the attainment of universal health coverage.
Throughout his career in public health, John has focused on working with stakeholders and co-creating evidence-based solutions towards addressing complex health issues. He supported the convening of a national dialogue to address critical human resources for health production gaps for primary health care (PHC) service delivery focusing on pre-service health training institutions and other high-level national and state forums. He has also written abstract papers presented at international conferences.
Before joining R4D, John had worked in various USAID and GFATM Health Systems Strengthening and technical assistance projects where he supported a landscape assessment and political economy analysis leading to implementation of public sector governance and budgetary reforms for improved delivery of PHC services at the sub-national level. He led the development of novel LGA oversight plans, domestication of state budget manual to the LGA level, development of operational and domestic resource mobilization plans, private sector engagement strategy document, development of Akwa Ibom Human Resource for Health Strategic Plan, and capacity building of health care providers across various public health programs including HIV/AIDS and malaria.
John previously supported the conceptualization, design, pilot, and implementation of Community-based Health Insurance Scheme in Akwa Ibom state as a key step towards PHC systems strengthening, improved financial protection, access, and coverage for the poor and vulnerable groups in the state. He led efforts at strengthening downstream supply-and demand-side interventions to improve access to the subsidized WHO-prequalified ACTs for the treatment of malaria working with private facilities under the GFATM’s private sector co-payment mechanism which significantly led to crowding out of monotherapies for treatment of malaria in Nigeria.
John is a graduate member of the Nigerian Institute of Management. He holds a Master of Science degree in Public Health with a specialization in Health Systems, Policy and Management from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka; an MPH in Public Health from Federal University of Technology Owerri and a Bachelor of Science degree in Microbiology from Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka. He also holds a postgraduate diploma in Global Health Procurement and Supply Chain Management from Empower School of Health, India. He is fluent in English and Ibo languages.
